On this part 2 blog of the chakras we go over the heart chakra, which is the chakra that connects body and spirit. The last 3 chakras that follow are the spiritual chakras; the throat, the thirds eye, and the crown. You can read on the first 3 chakra here.
The Heart Chakra
Location : center of chest
Color : Green or Clear
Element : Air
Gemstones : Emerald, Tourmaline, green Jade, Mother of Pearl
Ruling Organs : Heart, lungs, shoulders and arms, ribs/breasts, diaphragm, and cardiovascular system
The fourth chakra is the heart chakra. Also known as Anahata is sanskrit which means unhurt or unstuck. The heart chakra is located on chest, right in the middle of the first three foundation (bottom) chakras and the last three spirit chakras (above). It is where the physical and spiritual meet; a gateway to higher awareness known as seat of consciousness. The energy of the heart chakra is depicted as green; a color that ties us to all living things which is associated with new life and natural surroundings – it is tranquil, yet energized and soothing yet vibrant. the energy produced by the heart chakra allows us to have meaningful relationships and to feel empathy, compassion, passion, forgiveness and caring for others. The heart chakra embodies love and ability to give and receive love.
Healthy Heart Chakra
The heart chakra's energy helps with overcoming separation and division. It is governed by the law of giving and receiving. A healthy heart chakra is being able to love unconditionally and be open to receive that love back. An open Heart chakra means you are in harmony with all that is around you and you are a very open, giving and loving person. You literally glow and radiate your inner peace and happiness because you understand that love involves giving selflessly, with no expectations of anything in return. However, every act of giving is simultaneously an act of receiving. A person with a balanced heart chakra is also able to forgive and accept others and themselves.
Imbalance in your Sacral chakra
The heart chakra governs the way we communicate empathy and compassion to ourselves and to other, therefore someone with a blocked chakra might experience more grief, anger, jealousy, fear of betrayal, and hatred toward themselves and/or others. There is this love and hate spectrum within the scale of the heart chakra. When the chakra is overactive a person might be clingy, lack boundaries, experience resentment, or be self-centered. On the other spectrum, characteristics for an under-active heart chakra are loneliness, unable to open to others, feeling grudge, unable to overcome grief, bitterness, hatred toward persons, or lack of forgiveness and compassion.
Some practices to help Heal your Anahata
First thing’s first; you have a choice. That’s your superpower. You can choose to feel the full on hurt, you can let it go or you can hold on to it. It’s not so easy to just stop feeling hurt, but the more aware you are of your heart chakra, the more you understand that the most powerful energy we have is love. Exercising forgiveness and empathy will help you let go of things and move forward from hurtful or tough experiences. Here are some tips to make ya feel better:
-Be aware of your emotions and honor compassion and empathy
-Set boundaries with people that do not reciprocate positive energy
-Give but don’t expect, allow it to come back to you.
-Smile, fake smile, force that smile! find the smalls things that make you happy.
-Connect with nature; taking care of a plant(s) fosters the idea of animating a living thing that is non-human.
-Asana Yoga for the Anahata chakra
-Affirmations ; mantras, chants, prayers...Mantra for Anahata is YUM. A special mantra to help expand love and compassion is OM MANI PADME HUM.
-Meditations ; visualization meditations, candle meditations, breathing meditations, music meditations
-Movies that will make you cry! (specially dog movies) I know, not everyone is into them, but it’s nice to connect to that soft spot in your heart from time to time.
The Throat Chakra
Location : Throat
Color : Blue
Element : Ether (space)
Gemstones : sapphire, blue topaz, lapis lazuli, aquamarine, and turquoise
Ruling Organs : Throat, Neck, Mouth, Teeth and gums, Esophagus, Thyroid, Trachea
The fifth chakra is how you express yourself, your character and your intentions in the most authentic way. Located on your throat, this chakra embodies the energy we use to communicate our truth and personal power. It is also known as the Vishuddha chakra, it the first chakra of the spiritual chakras located above the heart on your neck/throat. Like mentioned before, this chakra can only be worked on once you’ve completed the healing practices of the other lower chakras. In order to express yourself confidently and truthful, you must overcome fear and understand your emotions. Those first steps are applied to the the first and second chakra. Then the third chakra is that energy that will guide you to take ownership of your personal power so at the end you’re able to express and verbalize your opinion, your emotions, and your desires.
Healthy Throat Chakra
Practicing what you preach is the foundation of the throat chakra. Valuing honesty, being truthful to yourself and to others, speaking out of love and not hate, communicating freely and expressing yourself in confident way are characteristics of a balanced throat chakra. Anyone can be a great motivational speaker or an inspiring mentor, but if they do not speak their truth and apply meaning to what they are communicating is not authentic. A good speaker must also be a good listener; this is another important energy of the throat chakra. It allows you to seek knowledge that is true, beyond limitations of time and space, beyond cultural and family conditioning.
Imbalance in your Throat chakra
When the throat chakra is blocked you are not able to express your truth or speak for yourself. Since the Vishuddha embodies the energy to communicate and speak, a person may be timid, quiet, or more reserved when they are around people or groups. Usually more introverted and unable to voice their needs or opinions. These are all actions for an under-active throat chakra. While someone with an overactive one may be overly talkative, very critical, gossip, or not able to express yourself in an honest way. Some people may even have difficulty speaking in general.
Some practices to help Heal your Vishuddha like a goddess!
Give your first 4 chakra some loving! Like mentioned above, it’s essential to connect with the chakras that will build or strengthen your foundation. Then after catering to these, you’ll start to understanding the spiritual ones. Recognizing whether you're being too passive or acknowledging the way you feel when you have to confront someone or a situation matters. This helps you determine what makes you uncomfortable and what you’re choosing not to express do to some fear. Rather than saying what you want, you may not say anything at all. Practicing or talking out loud to yourself may help because you assure yourself. Here are some other tips you can try;
-Journal; write letters to yourself and to people you would like to communicate but feel like you can’t
-Talk to yourself and use a mirror, or talk to your best friend, your dog, your cat. Use your voice; sing, hum, chant, read out loud.
-Honor honesty, compassion, and intention
-Practice Law of Detachment; it reminds you that you can choose your words and actions, but you cannot control the response to your words and action.
-Asana Yoga for the Vishuddha chakra
-Affirmations ; mantras, prayers...the mantra sound for the Vishuddha chakra is HUM.
-Meditations ; visualization meditations, candle meditations, breathing meditations, music meditations
-Listen. Don’t just hear someone talk, be present and practice mindful listening.
The Third Eye Chakra
Location : Between the eyebrows on forehead
Color : Indigo (dark blue)
Element : Light
Gemstones : amethyst, lapis lazuli, and azurite
Ruling Organs : Brain, nervous system, eyes, ears, nose, pineal gland, and pituitary gland.
The six chakra dominates intuition, extrasensory perception, awareness, and inspiration. This chakra governs that additional instinct we call mindfulness which is essentially all the senses combined. The third eye is also known as the Ajna chakra in sanskrit, meaning “beyond wisdom”. This is because Ajna energy provides you guidance to understand inner knowledge. The third eye is able to observe inner and outer spiritual experiences. It is an energy that guides us and assist us with our spiritual awakening. This also means that it helps you be tuned with your intellectual abilities and other senses we may think are not possible like; clairvoyance, telepathy, lucid dreaming, expanded imagination, and visualization.
Healthy Third Eye Chakra
This Chakra serves to provide you vision and light, making an access point for vision, intuition and wisdom. When the source is open and unblocked you have a deep connection to yourself. This allows you to be fully mindful and present and therefore you’re in tune with all your senses. You’ve learned to trust your senses in what you can taste, smell, touch, see, and hear. You are connected to your inner voice and feel guided in your choices. Remember that one time when we were primitive and had to rely on our senses to survive? And now we just use an emoji to communicate the emotion and sometimes they can be misinterpreted… Being fully aware of your 5 senses and mastering them is having a well balanced third eye chakra.
Imbalance in your Third Eye chakra
An imbalance on your third chakra creates a sense of distrust and self doubt. A person may not be present and mindful in situations and would lack good judgement. Usually an overactive third eye chakra results in being out of touch with reality, but not in a mentally unstable way, more so in a way where you are unable to focus. While an under-active third eye results in being reliant on authority or closed off to new ideas. Since the third eye embodies the energy if the present moment, a blocked third eye chakra can also cause feelings of anxiety from thinking too much about the past or constantly worrying about the future.
Some practices to help Heal your Ajna
Meditation, meditation and more meditation. This is the best practice there is because you are giving your mind some peace and quiet. But meditation also comes with insight and inner knowledge. You are essentially awakening an additional sense that guides you spiritually and physically so it takes mindful practice to start tuning in and then clean it out. They say that when you start meditating on the third eye chakra you start to feel a tingly sensation on your forehead, which means that energy is unlocking itself.
Other practices:
Already said it, but can’t express it enough: Meditations! Visualization meditations, candle meditations, breathing meditations, music meditations
Practice a Pranayama breathing technique called Brahmari. This can be done during meditation or anytime you’d like.
Honor all your senses; look into Synesthesia ; which is using multiple senses at once like a goddess!
Listen to you intuition, she’s your best friend and inner goddess
Asana Yoga for the Ajna chakra
Affirmations ; mantras, prayers...the mantra sound for the Ajna chakra is SHAM.
The Crown Chakra
Location : The crown of the head (top of the head)
Color : Deep Violet (purple)
Element : itself- it just is
Gemstones : amethyst, selenite, and sugilite.
Ruling Organs : Muscular system, skeletal system and skin
The seventh and last chakra is your crown. Literally, an energy crown that connects you to the Divine. The crown chakra, also known as Sahaswara, is the connection to our spiritual nature. It allows our physical self to become one with our spirit. It’s purpose is to align our awareness with the energy that creates everything in the universe. Call it, Goddess, God, or Gods, this is the source that leads to Samsara, the endless cycle of birth and rebirth. Also known as enlightenment or an awakening. We like to call it universal truth.
Healthy Crown Chakra
To define what exactly is a healthy crown chakra is subjective because everyone is on a different spiritual path. Someone may experience a very personal spiritual realization and not say anything, while others have shared spiritual awakenings. Being in touch with this chakra is very personal and intimate because you are seeking direct connection to the divine. Someone who has done the work will experience the expansion of spiritual awareness within themselves and in their outer world. You are continuously (or in this case, infinitely) experiencing higher levels of consciousness.
Imbalance in your Crown chakra
The seventh chakra is the chakra where consciousness resides. How mindful are you about your spirituality? Do you believe in anything other-than human? Even if you believe in science, you must have faith in the study of physics, the law of gravity and energy, etc. An imbalance in your crown chakra means disconnection or lack of spiritual insight. There is a sense of distrust when it comes to analyzing faith. Some other characteristics are selfishness, but like really selfish, not the normal kinda selfish, cause everyone should rightfully be a lil selfish. An under active crown chakra may resemble inability to see the larger picture, for example to really take into proportion our position as human beings in this vast expanding universe. While someone with an overactive crown may express addiction to finding their own form or spirituality and be heedless about their physical/body needs.
Some practices to help Heal your Sahaswara
Again, go pay attention to your other chakras before you start wanting to get all spiritual with the crown chakra. Meditations help a lot when you begin working on your crown chakra. Being comfortable in your silence and practicing awareness. Because the crown chakra is a spiritual energy center, practicing meditation, prayer, and daily silence are disciplines that lead to increased moments of spiritual connection. The challenge of this chakra is to liberate the spirit - open to the divine - and at the same time stay firmly rooted deep in the ground.
Also try these other practices:
Remembering you are part of and connected to the Divine.
Meditations! Visualization meditations, candle meditations, breathing meditations, music meditations
Practice a Pranayama breathing technique called Brahmari. This can be done during meditation or anytime you’d like.
Honor your spirituality; regardless of what you believe in
Listen to you intuition and journal your visions and intentions
Preserving your spiritual interest by always learning more about spirituality and connection.
Asana Yoga for the Sahaswara chakra
Affirmations ; mantras, prayers...the mantra sound for the Sahaswara chakra is OM.
Sources:
Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss, PH.D.
*Please contact us for Image Credit