Chakras - The Wheels of Life

Weekly Wellness Newsletter

Nov 22, 2024

This week, I’m going to touch on the topic of chakras. We’ll get into what they are, where to locate them, the energy they are associated with, and how this energy flows. I know there’s much more I could cover on this topic, but I’ll leave that for posts about the individual chakras themselves!

A chakra –the Sanskrit word for “wheel” – is a flowing vortex of life-force energy. Chakras are thus the “wheels of life” within us that absorb, store, transform, and emanate subtle energy. You can think of them as chambers or energy centers that transmute energies from your environments and experiences into hormonal, physiological, and cellular changes within the body.

Nowadays, most people you talk to will have likely heard of the word “chakra,” even if they don’t know its meaning. These energy centers are acknowledged in the practices of yoga and Reiki, as well as other healing arts. More and more people are becoming aware of just how important chakras are to our holistic health. Although hundreds of them exist in the human body, including the hands and feet, today, we will only go over the seven major chakras.

“The chakras are specialized energy centers which connect us to the multidimensional universe. The chakras are dimensional portals within the subtle bodies which take in and process energy of higher vibrational nature so that it may be properly assimilated and used to transform the physical body.”

- Richard Gerber, M.D. (Practical Guide to Vibrational Medicine)

Within the human body, we have something called the nervous system. The nervous system is the main communication system of the body. It sends signals and messages to other parts of the body so that we can continue to function. The nervous system communicates with other cells, organs, and connective tissue through nerve fibers and nerve ganglia or plexuses - clusters of nerves that act like little mini-brains.

Each chakra corresponds to a nerve plexus that resides along your spine. For example, have you ever felt nervous or anxious as if you had “butterflies in your stomach”? How about ever feeling your “heart flutter”? These feelings come from the cluster of nerves in that specific area of your body: your solar plexus chakra and heart chakra, respectively.

The chakras also correspond to organs, endocrine glands, psychological traits, developmental phases, and emotions based on their vibrational frequency. The lower chakras - which I’ll explain in a moment - are more connected to the physical realm and have lower vibrational frequencies or Hertz. The higher chakras are more connected to the spiritual realm and have higher vibrational frequencies or Hertz. It has been said that the chakra is a higher harmonic of the energy in the associated nerve plexus.

Rainbow Bridge

The seven chakras and their vibrational nature can be thought of as a rainbow. The chakras are associated with the colours of the rainbow, starting with the first chakra as the colour red and the seventh chakra as the colour violet. If you think about the fact that we’re made up of light (electricity) and about 70% water, it’s almost as if this combination within us creates an inner rainbow just as it does outside of us when the sun shines after it rains.

This inner rainbow bridges our physical experiences and our spiritual experiences and creates a roadmap for the soul that we can use to navigate our unique lives. As you follow your inner rainbow of chakras, you’ll realize that the first one is your foundation, and every one after that builds upon the previous one.

The first chakra - also called the root or base chakra - is associated with the colour red and located at the base of the spine at the coccyx or the tip of your tailbone. It holds your first experiences in this physical world as well as your feelings of security and safety, how your basic needs are met, your tribal community, and your instinct to procreate. This is where your energetic foundation begins to ground you to earth.

The second chakra - the sacral chakra - is associated with the colour orange and can be found below the navel at the sacrum area, hence the name. The energy here has moved from the first chakra energy of your basic needs being met to “now that I’m safe, what do I want to enjoy and take pleasure in?”. It relates to your creativity, emotions, pleasures, and sensuality. It is also associated with sexuality and the desire to create new life.

Once you know what you enjoy and feel comfort in doing, you’ll want to “get er done”. The third chakra is the solar plexus chakra. It is associated with the colour yellow and is located just above your belly button where you can sometimes feel little butterflies when you’re anxious or nervous. Here is where your courage, willpower, and determination in life reside. It is tied to your self-esteem and drive to get things done.

Do you have the courage to go out there and accomplish what you want? This chakra is where your inner light shines from; your inner sun. It’s also connected to your fight, flight, or freeze instincts.

The fourth chakra is the heart chakra. It is associated with the colour green (as well as pink) and is found in the center of your chest. Here is where you learn how to feel unconditional love, compassion, and gratitude in life. It is the chakra of healing, nurturing, and kindness. Once you learn to appreciate and love yourself, you can begin to have compassion for humanity and truly have love for others.

The fifth chakra is all about communication, expression, and creativity. It is the throat chakra, located at the throat, and its colour is blue. This chakra represents how you speak (both to yourself and others) and whether you speak your truth, tell lies, or hold things in. It’s where you express yourself and your creative nature through speaking, singing, playing music, reading, or writing. If we think about how this builds off of the heart center, we can think about how loving yourself and others makes you feel comfortable being open and honest in how you communicate.

At the sixth chakra, we reach the magical third-eye and the colour indigo or deep purple. This is the most mystical chakra, connecting you to the spiritual realm through your dreams, imagination, and manifestations. It is associated with your psychic abilities and intuition - “seeing” without seeing. It is located in the middle of your forehead just above your physical eyes. When you close your eyes and experience hypnosis or meditation, you can most likely see colours, shapes, or images in this area. This is your mind’s eye, and once you have clear and honest communication developed, you can use this chakra to attract experiences and manifest with intention.

The seventh and final major chakra is the crown chakra located at the top of your head. It is associated with the colour violet or pure white and is the chakra of universal understanding and enlightenment - oneness. It holds space for transcendence and connects you to higher knowledge. This chakra is all about consciousness, spiritual awakening, self-realization, and bliss. Once you’ve opened and balanced all the previous chakras, you realize that you are not separate from anything else and you connect with the collective consciousness.

The chakras are often called the “gateways to the soul” because they connect the spiritual realm to the physical realm - bridging the energy between the mind and body and spirit and matter. They are just as important as our physical organs like our stomach and liver. Just because we can’t physically see the chakras (which, by the way, have you ever seen your stomach or liver? Yet you know they’re there…) doesn’t mean they’re not part of our bodies and something we need to take care of.

So, now that we know what chakras are and what energy they are associated with, let’s see how the energy flows through and around them and what we can do to keep them balanced.

Flow of Energy

The flow of energy within these centers includes in and out (reception and expression), up and down (ascending and descending), and all around (swirling motion). This energy comes from our thoughts, feelings, actions, experiences in life, and how we perceive our reality. They are assimilated, transformed, or stored based on our beliefs, patterns, and programming. The goal or intent is to have a harmonic chakra system with a balance of energy in each chakra and an open ascending and descending flow.

It might help to think of the human body as hardware and the energy we store as software. Some software is helpful and supportive and can assist you in creating what you want. However, some software causes more problems than good, can prevent you from accomplishing what you want, and take up valuable space.

The subtle energy that travels through the chakras comes from your aura and moves through pathways called nadis. You can imagine nadis being similar to the meridian network that is accessed through acupuncture; although they are not the same thing. There are three major nadis: the Pingala, the Ida, and the Sushumna.

The Pingala nadi is the masculine or more active channel. The Ida nadi is the feminine and passive or receptive channel. The Sushumna is the central channel. The Ida and Pingala nadis flow in a zig-zag pattern through the chakras much like the caduceus symbol. They also represent the same helix pattern that resembles the design of DNA. Besides the three main nadi channels, many sources describe up to 72,000 nadis in and around the human body!

Ascending and Descending

The ascending flow of energy through the chakras is referred to as the pathway of liberation. As we open and balance the chakras on the way up towards the crown, we free ourselves from repetitive emotional, mental, and physical patterns that keep us out of touch with our spiritual nature. As I mentioned above, the lower chakras relate to the physical world, the earthly realm, and the denser energy that we call “matter”. As we journey upwards through the chakras, we learn to detach ourselves from the physical while still experiencing it.

The descending flow of energy is referred to as the pathway of manifestation. If our higher chakras are open, we tend to be very spiritual or receptive to the universe. We might have wonderful ideas and be able to visualize what we want yet not be grounded enough in our physical reality to make it happen. When we open and balance the chakras on this pathway, we learn to turn our ideas into actions and create in the physical realm.

Over-activity and Under-activity

A lack of energy in a chakra creates under-activity in that area of the body and its corresponding parts. It becomes depleted and will no longer produce enough energy to run at optimal level. You can imagine this as a kink in a hose. If there’s a kink in the garden hose, the water is stuck and can’t get to where it needs to go to nurture the garden. Well, if your chakra is connected to other parts of your body, you can imagine that an under-active chakra won’t be providing enough energy to the organs and body parts that it’s associated with.

An excess of energy in a chakra creates over activity which can lead to stress or burnout. The chakra ends up overcompensating and overflowing with energy (now imagine the opposite situation with the garden hose, where now you have too much water in the garden that it’s flooding!). Excess energy in a chakra will be heightened and can show up in your reality as over-speaking, being super emotional, doing too many things at once, etc.

Coming Into Balance

Not only do we want a good and healthy flow moving up and down the chakra system as well as in and out, but we also want a healthy flow within the chakras themselves. We want the energy that’s in there to be moving or turning like a wheel should.

The chakras are like a manual for the human soul - they tell us what area of our lives might need some reflection based on what chakra is out of alignment, deficient, excessive, etc. Maybe we’re exerting too much physical energy by working too hard to feel financially secure (first chakra). Perhaps we’re not open to finding love in our lives and keep ourselves from connecting on a deeper level (fourth chakra). We could be lying to ourselves and shying away from speaking our truth (fifth chakra).

These energy centers accumulate energy from our experiences and interactions with our environments and store those energy imprints as memories. It’s like taking a screenshot of that moment in life and filing it away for future reference. It becomes a program.

It is part of our spiritual growth and awakening of self to learn how our chakras have been programmed and start reprogramming them with more beneficial software. You can do this by acknowledging what energy is currently there and healing the energy that has been stored and is no longer serving you. Begin living life with more intention and awareness of the energy you encounter as well as the energy that you give off. Balancing the chakras is an ongoing practice because we are always surrounded by and experiencing different energies.

I hope this newsletter will inspire you to take the time to journey through your chakras and reflect on where you might want to do some energy work. It’s well worth the practice and will only strengthen your intuition and improve your life in the process!

Namaste.

With Love, Light, and Gratitude,

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