What Is A Chakra?
Chakra is an English word that is derived from the Sanskrit meaning which is wheel or disk. Simply put, chakras are wheels of invisible energy located at different points in our body. Each chakra is connected to a color depending on its own vibrational frequency. These wheels of energy correspond to several different parts in our body. Chakras regulate our nerves, immune system and major organs. Aligning your chakras allow for a balanced emotional, psychological and spiritual state of mind. When you think of a chakra, visualize a wheel of energy swirling at a point where matter and consciousness meet. This invisible energy is called Prana. Prana is vital life force which gives us a healthier mind, body and soul.
Even if you don't believe that we have wheels of energy inside of us, by following what I am about to teach you, will still give you a happier and healthier life. Instead of calling them chakras and thinking of them as energy, think of this article as a guided lesson to help you achieve your goals.
What Am I Supposed To Do With My Chakras?
We want to try to keep our chakras open, balanced and aligned at all times. The goal is to align our chakras so that they can all work together in providing us with a harmonious life. They are like gears, each doing its own job but needing to connect in order to keep the machine (mind, body and soul) healthy and alive. I will go through each chakra individually and guide you in the most important steps to aligning each one.
These are the 3 main goals that we want to focus on with our chakras:
- Chakra Balancing
- Opening Your Chakras
- Chakra Healing
How Many Chakras Are There?
Ancient cultures were well aware that everything is made of energy, this was well before modern science and technology. They knew that all living things carried this prana life force. They called the centers of this life force chakras. There are over 100 chakras, essentially there are 7 main centers in our body that connect them all. The 7 main chakras align our spine, starting at the base of the spine through the crown of the head.
7 Main Chakras
- (Red) Root Chakra - Grounding
- (Orange) Sacral Chakra - Identity As A Human
- (Yellow) Solar Plexus - Self-Confidence
- (Green) Heart Chakra - Love & Compassion
- (Blue) Throat Chakra - Communication, True To Self
- (Indigo) Third Eye Chakra - Intuition, Understanding
- (Violet) Crown Chakra - Peace, Oneness, Higher Power
I will show you several steps you can take to help better yourself and ways to help you manifest success and happiness. First, we need to learn all of these simple basic techniques so that our mind, body and soul are in tune with universe.
ROOT CHAKRA
Functions Of The Root Chakra
- Security
- Safety
- Basic Needs
- Survival
- Foundation
- Grounded
The root chakra is the most important because this is the foundation in which we build our life. When our root chakra is aligned we feel safe, we feel a sense of accomplishment when we think about things that have to do with our basic needs (food, shelter, money). We will feel strong and grounded. If our root chakra is not aligned and open than we can't move up to the next wheel.
Imbalanced Root Chakra
You can easily tell if the root chakra isn't open. You will have an excessive amount of negativity with you. Your view on certain situations will always be negative and the positive views will be buried and not able to shine through. You will have an overabundance of worry and fear, feeling safe will not come easy if your root chakra is closed. Lack of energy, eating disorders, greed and insecurities are also signs of an imbalanced root chakra.
Opening The Root Chakra
You don't even need to be a spiritual person to align your chakras. As a beginner, there are several different things that you can start with to help open this chakra. The main step you can take is to just focus on the color red all throughout your day. You can wear a red shirt when you need to feel grounded. When you see the color red, let that be a simple reminder to stop for a moment and focus on your root chakra. Imagine the color red flowing through your body where your root chakra is located (base of spine) and visualize a red glowing wheel spinning effortlessly. The best way to open this chakra is by connecting to mother earth and engaging with nature. You can do something as simple as taking a walk, as long as you use your intention to focus on your root chakra that will help you to open it.
Connecting With The Earth
- Take A Walk
- Gardening
- Sunbathing
- Playing sports outside
- Walking barefoot (this is the best way to ground)
If you can't make it outside, a good substitute is to focus on earthy colors and objects of nature. Visualize yourself grounding your roots into the earth and anchor your energy there. Grounding will come easily to you in no time if you focus on these simple techniques.
Eating food that connects to the root chakra can help you immensely as well. Basically any food that grows in the ground, anything that roots itself. A few examples are carrots, potatoes radishes, onions and garlic. This next tip is an extremely cheap and easy step that you can take. Go to any store that sells candles and buy a candle that represents the color of each chakra. To make it cheaper, just about any dollar store has small colored candles.
I use candles to represents my chakras which works very well too. Each day I pull out my candle that is the same color as the chakra that I am focused on. Even if you don't light the candle, it will be one of those reminders to get that color energy flowing through your root chakra. When you do light the candle, the smell will represent the color of each candle so then you have a sweet gentle reminder in the air while you are home.
Here is a little homework for today, go take this simple chakra test and write down your results. This test will help you determine how your chakras are doing right now. The test will not only tell you percentages but it will also tell you which chakra is open, closed, overactive or underactive. It is a good way to track your progress.
Are you feeling uninspired?
SACRAL CHAKRA
Functions Of The Sacral Chakra
- Imagination
- Creativity
- Confidence
- Sex drive
- Emotional Stability
This chakra is an important one. First, I will share with you a few reasons as to why we should focus on opening our sacral chakra. When our sacral chakra is aligned we feel confident and it feels like our personal growth is going in the right direction. This chakra is associated with emotions, so you will gain better control over your emotions. You're imagination and creativity will take you places that you could only dream of! The sacral chakra is also associated with sexuality, by aligning and opening this chakra you have a high chance of increasing your sex drive.
Imbalanced Sacral Chakra
If your sacral chakra is blocked than you will feel many emotions that a lot of us feel almost daily. You will feel bored, uninspired and discouraged, you may have a low sex drive. A blocked sacral chakra will show by signs of jealousy, low self worth, and even addictions. If you are an emotional wreck at times, you probably have this chakra blocked. Look out for physical signs such as increased allergies and urinary discomfort.
Opening The Sacral Chakra
Opening this chakra is a fun one. Dancing is a wonderful way to get this orange flow of energy freely moving, not only in our sacral chakra but also our entire body. Since the sacral chakra is associated with the water element, I highly recommend you gain a connection with water. For example, taking a bath, swimming, feeling the rain, even increasing your water intake will help balance the sacral chakra. Place your focus on the color orange all throughout your day . Roughly 2 inches below your belly button is where you are going to focus on this orange color. Visualize a bright and glowing orange light flowing through your sacral chakra, clearing it out of any negativity and imagine the orange light swirling your sacral chakra.
Keep Up On Your Creativity
- Draw
- Dooldle
- Paint
- Make Crafts
- Color
- Write Poetry
Even when you don't feel creative, this is an important step to help maintain a balanced sacral chakra. Eating sweet fruits like oranges and melons will help with this as well. Burning an orange candle is one of my favorite ways to remind myself to focus on my sacral chakra. Since this chakra is right above our root chakra we are still closely connected to the earth, which means that nature will help balance your sacral chakra. Go outside and spend time enjoying the view of the flowers and the trees. Another great tip, repeating affirmations is an extremely effective way to align our chakras.
Affirmations To Heal Your Sacral Chakra
- I Am Creative
- I Am Enough
- My Sexuality Is Sacred
- I Allow Myself To Experience Pleasure
- I Am At Peace
- I Embrace Life With Passion
Repeat these at any given time during your day.
By following these easy tips, you will feel inspired and the creativity will easily flow from within you.
If you answered yes to even one of those five questions than you will benefit greatly from what I am about to teach you. If all of your answers were no, congratulations - your solar plexus wheel is effortlessly swirling a beautiful yellow energy through it! Regardless of your answers to those questions, every single human can benefit greatly from opening the solar plexus chakra. I will show you simple tips that will guide you in finding your own personal power.
Before I can show you these tips, we need to know what this chakra is and why it is important to our mind, body and soul.
SOLAR PLEXUS
This is where we start to get into finding our life purpose, being confident in our work and ourselves. This is the chakra that gives us POWER! So, we discussed the first chakra (root) , that is where we learned how to ground ourselves. We need to have our feet planted firmly into the ground, we need to start with a solid foundation. Think of this as building a house, to build a house you need to start with the foundation. The same principle works with our chakras, build your solid foundation and everything else will work around that perfectly. The second chakra that we learned about is the sacral. By opening the sacral chakra we have awakened our creativity and gained emotional stability. Now we are ready to gain personal power and release this yellow solar plexus energy which enables us to turn our desires into action.
Functions Of The Solar Plexus Chakra
- Personal Power
- Independance
- Self-Discipline
- Turn Ideas and Plans Into Reality
- Reach Your Goals
- Find Your Purpose
- Easier Decision Making
- Take Responsibility
Have you ever felt like you were so motivated that you could take on the world all by yourself? Well, you can feel that motivation every single day by keeping the solar plexus chakra balanced. Making tough decisions will no longer be a daunting task. You will have the motivation and the desire to turn your dreams into reality! All of those plans, ideas and goals you have written down, will no longer just be ink on a piece of paper. By opening the solar plexus you will have all the motivation in the world to take action. Your life purpose will either become clear to you or it will no longer be something that you are clueless about.
Codependency will more than likely not be option when this chakra is open. The independence and power you feel from the solar plexus turning its gears in the right direction, will change your life forever. The solar plexus is associated with the fire element. That comes to no surprise because when this chakra is balanced, you can certainly feel the burning fire and desire, light that spark inside of your mind, body and soul that you are so desperately longing for.
Imbalanced Solar Plexus Chakra
Considering this is the chakra that gives us personal power, when the solar plexus is blocked it will have some very negative effects on us. You will no longer feel like you know what your purpose is, you will feel lost and very helpless. This chakra will easily become blocked when we are made to deal with difficult moments in life. This is a very important chakra to keep balanced so that we can overcome and power through these terrible moments. Excessive control, insecurity, anxiety and poor self image can all start when the wheel to our solar plexus stops swirling. We can also develop any illness that is connected to the digestive system when this chakra is blocked.
Misusing your power is a clear sign of an imbalanced solar plexus - I am talking to some of you Steemians on that one, I see you over there. Do this wonderful community a favor and open up that solar plexus!
Are you ready to learn how to find your own personal power?
Opening The Solar Plexus Chakra
The tips and tricks are very simple. You don't have to start talking to trees, doing the downward dog or sitting quietly hoping to shut your mind down and meditate. These steps are great for beginners and also for someone who doesn't have much time to spend on their chakras. The first thing that you can do is wear yellow, if you don't have anything yellow to wear that is okay. Every time you see the color yellow, visualize that bright beautiful color flowing into your solar plexus. Eating foods related to this color will not only help your mind to focus on this chakra but also your body. Bananas, sunflower seeds and yellow peppers are just a few to start with. The sun is an incredible way to allow the solar plexus wheel to spin in the right direction. Not only is the sun yellow, it also relates to fire which is a double win when we are working on the solar plexus. I find affirmations to be one of the most effective way to work on my chakras. Repeat these in the morning to start your day and anytime that you need a reminder or boost in your personal power.
Affirmations For The Solar Plexus
- I Am Strong
- I Am In Control Of My Life
- I Feel My Power
- Courage Effortlessly Flows Through Me
- I Direct My Life
- I Deserve Happiness
- I Accept Myself
- It Is Safe To Release My Personal Power
The image below can become a powerful tool to release your own personal power. This will show you how easy it is to begin balancing our chakras. You can choose to focus directly on the image or focus your eyes on the white screen next it and use your peripheral vision to connect to the yellow color. Whichever you choose is perfectly fine.
Start by visualizing the image of the swirling yellow color as your solar plexus chakra. Remember, your solar plexus is located above your belly button.
Now you are going to repeat any affirmation/s that you choose. I will recommend a simple one, "I Am Strong and Powerful!" Repeat this at least 3 times.
Take a few seconds to visualize the energy and vibrations of the color yellow, effortlessly flowing through your solar plexus chakra and then through your entire body.
That's all you do! If you are already aware of chakras and how to align them than you may have felt a tingling feeling in your stomach. It is normal to feel nothing at all, just keep practicing on the tips that I have shared with you.
By following these tips and opening the solar plexus, I promise that your personal power will flow through you. You will feel motivated to take control over your life and turn desires into action. Follow along with me and be sure you check out the first two chakras that I discussed. Our chakras are a system which will work best when all of the gears are swirling this wonderful prana energy.
Balancing, opening and aligning our chakras takes time and practice. Once you start to apply these simple steps for each one, you will feel so much better in every area of your life. Focus on one chakra at a time. When I first started I worked on one chakra for 3-4 days. Now I rotate them and work on one each day. Since this is a lot to take in, I am going to start with these 3 chakras for now. These 3 are the bottom chakras that help us shape our everyday lives. We can not move up to the others until we get a grasp on these 3. Be on the lookout for the next 4 chakras!
Here is a little homework for today, go take this simple chakra test and write down your results. This test will help you determine how your chakras are doing right now. The test will not only tell you percentages but it will also tell you which chakra is open, closed, overactive or underactive. It is a good way to track your progress.
image source
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