Everything is energy - the crashing waves of the ocean, the sunlight we feel on our skin, the electricity that powers our homes, the music we listen to, the words we speak and even the thoughts we think.
Yet we very rarely think of ourselves as energy sources with most people having very little understanding of their energy bodies - myself included.
That is, until just over a year ago where I felt this pull towards learning more about chakras and how they worked.
It was one of the first seemingly 'woohoo' things I felt a strong curiosity about when I embarked on this inner journey of self-discovery, and while I had heard about chakras before, I'd never really known much about them.
So I did a chakra course and when I applied this knowledge intuitively in my life, it was when things truly started to shift and I believe it to be one of the main reasons for the exponential growth I've experienced in such a short space of time.
The same can be true for you.
The problem is that we're not taught about any of this in school or as we grow up, with the focus always being on our physical health and more recently, our mental health, both of which are extremely important, but there is a piece of the puzzle missing - our energetic health.
And our energy influences everything.
It's the foundation to optimal health, before the physical and mental. In fact, it directly influences our physical and mental health.
In this article, I'm going to share my learnings of how our energy centers work and how to manage them in order to operate at the highest level possible, based on my own direct experience.
My ability to tune into, unblock and manage my energy centers has changed the quality of my life and the way I view the world.
While the topic of energy and chakras may still carry a stigma as being a bit 'out there', it's very much real whether you believe it or not, and I hope that I'm able to root some of the knowledge and insights into a practical way for you to integrate it into your life.
So keep an open mind, find what resonates with you and then try it out for yourself.
What are chakras?
Every single person has an energy field or aura. It's the electromagnetic field that surrounds our body and interacts with the world around us on an energetic level.
Just like a sponge, our physical bodies are absorbed in this energy with our chakras being responsible for ensuring the general health of the electromagnetic field we produce.
Chakras, meaning "wheel" in Sanskrit, are the energy centers in our bodies that govern the flow of energy and feed into our auras which influence the frequency at which we vibrate (this is a topic for another day).
While we have many energy centers throughout our bodies, there are 7 that are the most well-known running along our spine, and these form the foundation of our energetic health.
Each chakra has a specific frequency at which it operates, as well as a colour, theme and overarching emotion associated with it.
The lower 3 chakras (root, sacral and solar plexus) are linked to Earthly energy - everything connected to the material, physical world. The upper 3 chakras (throat, third eye and crown) are linked to universal or divine energy - everything connected to spirituality, meaning and purpose.
The heart chakra is what connects it all, connecting the flow of universal energy with the flow of Earthly energy.
It is arguably the most important energy center of all, and the one that is often blocked in the majority of people.
If you imagine our spine as a pipe through which energy flows, then each chakra is like a turbine.
We take in energy from our crown chakra, which is linked to the divine or universal source, and from our root chakra which is linked to the Earth.
When we are operating optimally, our chakras are open and spinning at the perfect speed in order to allow the energy to flow through, much like that in a water tunnel system.
If a chakra is closed, then the energy cannot pass through and starts to build up, causing a blockage.
When an energetic blockage occurs, it manifests itself physically and emotionally in our bodies, hindering us from living life in the way we're supposed to.
How the chakras become blocked
As we go about living our lives and having various experiences, we react to everything happening around us.
We perceive the events of the outside world through our own unique lens, which triggers us to have various thoughts and emotions.
As emotions are simply energy in motion, we need to be able to feel them in order to allow them to pass through and become released (like water flowing through a pipe or water in a stream).
However, when energy is met with resistance, it cannot flow through its usual path and therefore becomes blocked. Depending on the strength of the resistance, the energy might become completely blocked or at the very least, the flow weakened.
Our perception of the world around us, dictated by the conditioning and programming instilled in us during childhood, is what causes internal resistance.
As each chakra is linked to an emotion, the chakra that gets blocked would be due to that particular emotion not being allowed to pass through.
A real-life example of this would be if you were going through a break-up and you were the one who initiated it, causing a lot of heartbreak and sadness in your partner.
You start to experience emotions of guilt and instead of feeling those emotions in it's entirety (which isn't easy) and allowing it to pass, you hold on to the emotion of guilt as a way to "pay for your decision" and maintain somewhat of a victim mindset, as that is what your internal programming is conditioned to do - most likely without you even knowing it.
As this feeling of guilt is not being allowed to be experienced by the body, which is the key emotion linked to the sacral chakra, this particular energy center then starts to become blocked. If it is not unblocked, this energy will continue to build up, impacting us physically and emotionally.
With the sacral chakra example, this blockage will result in us experiencing a low libido, menstrual issues for women or liver/bladder issues. Emotionally, this will impact our levels of creativity, pleasure and joy.
Understanding your chakras
There is a lot of information available on our energy centers and the depth of knowledge can seem pretty overwhelming, but understanding the basics is all you need in order to manage and improve your energetic health.
The key things you need to know:
- Where each chakra is located in your body
- The physical and emotional associations of each chakra
- The symptoms of a blocked chakra
The graphic below encompasses these basics and are the foundation you'll need.
How to unblock your chakras
The more in tune you become with your body, your emotions and your intuition, the more easily you will be able to tell when a chakra is blocked.
The best way to do this is through meditation (I've written another piece on my morning routine which you can check out for more help on getting started).
However, there are some telltale signs that your body will display when a chakra is blocked, the problem is we never really make the link between any physical symptoms we may be experiencing with our energy centers - but now you know!
You can also do a chakra reading using a crystal pendulum which you can learn to do yourself, or have someone credible do this for you.
You can open your chakras using frequency meditation, chants, crystals, affirmations, mudras (hand postures) and even certain yoga poses. The most effective and simple way I have found is combining meditation (to certain frequencies/chants) with crystals and affirmations.
To open a blocked chakra, I would do the below for 3, 7 or 21 days, depending on how blocked it may be (which you can tell by how you feel or in a chakra reading):
- Set aside 20 minutes
- Lie down somewhere comfy
- Place the associated crystal on the chakra you are focusing on opening, e.g. if it’s the sacral chakra then you will place the crystal on the area just below your belly button
- Get into a meditative state and listen to the relevant frequency/chant for the duration of the track (ideally with over-ear headphones)
- Focus on your breathing, think of the color associated with the chakra and imagine the energy from the crystal and from the frequency being absorbed into your body and moving into the area of your blocked chakra.
- Do this for the duration of the soundtrack being played (you can checkout my YouTube playlist linked below)
- Once done, pick 1-3 affirmations that resonate with you from the list provided below and say them out loud to yourself 21 times with intention - do this after meditation while your mind is most susceptible.
How to know which crystals to use
The simplest way is to get yourself one crystal of each colour of the chakra.
Below are the names of common ones you can find in any crystal shop:
- Root (Red) - red jasper
- Sacral (Orange) - orange calcite or carnelian
- Solar Plexus (Yellow) - citrine or Tiger's Eye
- Heart (Green or Pink) - rose quartz or green aventurine
- Throat (Blue) - aquamarine or blue lace agate
- Third Eye (Indigo) - amethyst or labradorite
- Crown (Violet or White) - clear quartz or howlite
Resources
- My YouTube playlist for the frequency meditations
- A comprehensive list of affirmations to choose from
Important disclosure
While these tools can help to unblock your chakras in the short-term, until you actively work on releasing deeper energetic blockages (through practices like breathwork) and change the way you handle your emotions (through practices like meditation), your energy centers will continue to get blocked.
How to maintain your chakras
I like to keep it simple.
Unless I can feel I'm off somewhere, I read my chakras once a month to keep a pulse on my energetic health.
I then do 'chakra alignment' once a week, either in the form of a chakra realigning meditation or by placing crystals on a piece of paper (I won't dive into this just yet as it might be too much haha).
For the meditation, there are a lot of resources you can find on YouTube which will play certain frequencies together with specific chants in a particular order, which will help to rebalance your 7 main chakras.
The one I tend to use is this one:
Chakra rebalancing meditation
Conclusion
Our health is crucial for us to operate at the highest level, do the things we want to do, and to live a truly fulfilling and enjoyable life.
And for many of us, we've been missing a very important piece of the puzzle - our energetic health.
Everything in the universe is energy and when our bodies are energetically healthy, not only do we feel physically better, but we also feel more connected to ourself and to the world we live in.
This means we're able to be more aligned with our intuition and sense of purpose, allowing ideas, information and inspiration to flow through us and become grounded in our physical reality.
By taking care of your energy, you can tune into the wisdom that exists within you and all around you.
If that's too 'woohoo' for you, then just trust me that you will feel physically and emotionally better.
Besides, what have you got to lose by trying?
