CHAKRAS....SO WHAT ARE THEY?
So, if you don't know much about chakras, or straight up never even heard of them, this is the post for you!
In 1823 within the Hindu Vedas, historians translated scripts from yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah.
Now, I'm not being disrespectful of the beautiful history of chakras and their origin, but this is meant to be a simple, basic and efficient course on chakras. There is a vast and incredible amount of information on the creation and evolution of how the study and practice of chakras came across, and if you really want to know, I can make another blog specifically about that.
However, we are just going to focus on the basics and clear out all the excess details and information so you can focus on only the most important aspects of what they are and how they work so you can focus on that rather than a detailed history lesson.
So here it is: there is a founded belief that our life energy exists in two realms, the physical body and the spiritual body, or "subtle" body. The two co-exists. And although we can't see or really sense our subtle body, the effects can be felt through us on an almost subconscious level. It interacts with us through the psyche of our mind plane into our body plane.
Meaning we can tap into it through our mind using meditation and visualization to connect to them. Almost like our bodies are a computer, chakras are applications on our computers that help them work, and our mind is the operating system we use to find and connect to them.
By meditation on a specific chakra, it's like we are moving our mouse around to find them, going through folders and sub-folders to opening them up, clean them out of any viruses or excess documents and keeping them functioning properly.
OK...BUT WHAT ARE THEY? WHAT DO THEY DO?
Yes, so each chakra represent important and essential aspect of our lives through concentrated spots of energy that are located within our bodies. There may be no physical product of this, no magic stones of energy inside within our organs that can be surgically found, but the energy is located in those areas non-the-less.
Let me put it this way: you can't see wifi signals through the air, but everyone knows they're real, flying towards your phone and opening up your Candy Crush app.
So these chakras work like energy headquarters that affect different challenges and affirmations in our life. Like one is for our sense of strength and another for our sense of love. There are 7 in total. Each one is dedicated to a positive energy in our life that we need. They each have their own affirmation, color, element, challenge and even sound!
CHAKRA LOCATIONS AND COLORS
As mentioned, the 7 chakras are located in a straight vertical line along the body from the base of your pelvic area all the way to the top of your head.
When visualizing your chakras, there is a specific color dedicated to each which you will visualize when working on each one through meditation. By being able to visualize the energy its color form, you will achieve a better grasp on it and work with it better.
The traditional colors that go with each are as follows from Head to Base:
CROWN - VIOLET
THIRD EYE - INDIGO
THROAT - BLUE
HEART - GREEN
SOLAR PLEXUS - YELLOW
SACRAL - ORANGE
ROOT - RED
However each person is different, and sometimes these colors might not resonate exactly with your chakras. You might find when visualizing or picking out stones that those colors don't call to you.
When I went to pick out my chakra stones, I looked at the traditional ones, but found that they didn't resonate with me. I kept looking around and found other stones that, after reading their purpose, found that they still help properties that would work with my chakras, and more importantly, I could actually feel my chakras vibrating and reacting to the stones when I held onto them. So in the end, my chakra colors are a little different than the ones traditionally used.
These are mine...
CROWN - CLEAR
THIRD EYE - PURPLE
THROAT - AQUAMARINE
HEART - PINK
SOLAR PLEXUS - YELLOW
SACRAL - RED
ROOT - BLACK
Now that may be because some of them are blocked, overworked or need healing and could turn to the traditional colors over time. But for now, this is what it is as I work with them and see where they go.
SO WHY DO I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THEM?
Well, I suppose you don't NEED to know about them. Just like you don't NEED to know how you carbon footprint effects the earth, but at the end of the day, knowing makes you more aware and now you use bamboo straws instead of plastic ones to help the environment.
Ok, so maybe you DO need to know!
And the reason to know is that chakras, like any other form of energy in this world, can become blocked, damaged or be over-worked. And the only way to 'heal' them is to be aware of them and work on them. And the only way to work on chakras is going through your minds plane in your physical body to tap into the energy in that subtle body we talked about, and work on each one to make sure they are healthy and flowing good energy.
Without constant practice and cleansing, chakras can begin to create a negative impact on your life and well-being.
Picture air filters. Picture each chakra containing a filter where the energy of life flows through. And let’s face it, life has A LOT of stuff in it. Good and bad. The bad ‘stuff’ gets caught up in your filter and can block all the good 'stuff’ that needs to get in too. As we know, negativity always feels bigger and denser which is probably why it sticks to our ‘filters’ rather than flow through.
With meditation and awareness, we clean out filters of that gunk so that our chakras can flow free and allow positivity to travel freely within us.
Makes sense?
SO WHAT HAPPENS TO MY CHAKRAS?
I have personally found those to be the 4 possible states our chakras can be found in:
OPEN - When open, the energy flows freely through the body bringing peace to our self. We know how to work with troubles in our life and we connect with our other-self becoming one with who we are and you place in the world.
ex: your root chakras is open and flowing. You have no fear of your sense of survival. You can deal with problems that come your way by understanding them and working through them without fear in your way, just inner strength.
CLOSED or BLOCKED - When closed, energy can't flow and we can't find peace in our life. We can't deal with certain issues and we lose sight into who we really are and what we want, also causing separation from others and the world around us.
ex: when a heart chakra is blocked and you find yourself unable to open up to the love around or in you. You lack empathy, compassion and the ability to care deeply for others.
DAMAGED - These maybe be opened, but in a negative way. The energy flows counter-clock wise and works against itself. What should be open to help us, is working against us and has been infected with negative energies brought onto us by outside influences that we hold and make a part of us.
ex: when the throat chakra is damaged, you may be good at communicating, but most of what you say are lies and you can't seem to stop talking about negative things.
OVERWORKED - You ever heard the phrase "too much of a good thing"? This is it. Some chakras are so open, so powerful, so forceful, that they can also end up working against us.
You will have to go through each chakra and find which ones are blocked, damaged, or overworked.
ex: when your sacral chakra is overworked, you have lost yourself in pleasures too much. Sex becomes obsessive, alcohol becomes a daily pleasure and all sense of guilt is thrown out the window to self-pleasures, damaging yourself and other chakras with overabundance energy.
So as you can see, there is a lot of complexity and information on chakras, but with what we covered, you should be able to gain a good notion as to what they are and form a more defined idea on how to connect with them and begin to heal.
HOW DO I CLEANSE MY CHAKRAS?
I'll tell you this right now: it's going to take practice. But like many things, the journey is almost the most beautiful part of it. You will be able to connect and find yourself in newer and more beautiful ways than you can imagine. It will be hard, sometimes terrifying, but so worth it!
Now that you know what chakras are, and what they're benefits are and you've decided to work on them, you can move on to the post that dives deeper into each one to prep for working with them in this post.