Chakras: A beginner's Guide to the 7 Chakras

Chakras A Basic Introduction

Chakras are the body's energy system.  When you learn about them you learn how to work with your own awareness and ability to feel, sense and use the information in your chakras.  

There is nothing needed to understand them, other than an open mind and open heart.  through self-study and learning and meditation you can guide yourself to learn more and use that wisdom to energize your body and spirit. 

There many books and teachers to help you learn more about chakras and your energy system, so please be aware that the information here is a very basic. 

Chakra means “wheel” in Sanskrit - and through somatic experience and knowing you can truly feel how they work. So we deal not just with ideas, beliefs or thoughts, but also feelings and the chakra energy of your own spirit self. 

The chakras are the division of your body energy into individual wheels or vortexes of vibration. Each chakra holds a specific function and vibration while playing an important role in the whole energy system. Each chakra needs the others to function in a healthy way.

Imagine in essence you are pure white light of spirit.  You came to this physical body, and it acts as a prism,   your body that splits the pure white light of spirit into 7 rainbow component parts in your human form.

A healthy chakra system will bring you joy, delight, soul, meaning, purpose, energy, fun, vitality and radiance to your life.  It’s a life-long commitment to work with yourself as an energy being.  Working with chakras will also bring to light your imbalances, your distortions and your blocks.  And acceptance and befriending all your "shadow" aspects is also part of moving into wholeness of your full Self. 

And if this is a beginning for you on chakra understanding - have fun.

Chakra one is your root chakra, your connection to earth and nature,  it is where and how you ground here on earth.  It is why you feel safe.  As a spiritual being in a physical body it is vital to be alive and awake in this root energy.  It is how you connect to your family of origin, tribe or the place where you call home.  Many need healing in their base chakra if their family of origin was dysfunctional through abuse, poverty, chaos, dislocation or addictions.

When this chakra is working well, you have a great sense of belonging.  Yet you do not cling to people or places.  You are grounded and connected with life and trust that wherever you go, whoever you meet, you will feel connected, grounded and have no question that you belong.

A healthy root chakra means you also feel all your physical needs are met. You do not worry about your survival. You know and trust in the abundance of the universe.   Distortions/ stressful beliefs in this chakra could be beliefs such as “I won’t survive”, “I don’t have a home”,  “I don't belong” or “I should not be here” or “there is something wrong with me”

Chakra 2 is the place of your passion and creativity, from where all your “babies” (projects, awareness’s, new ideas, children and creative endeavours) are born. It is the place of delight and desire.

 Often said to be the sexual chakra, that is indeed true, and it is not just about having sex, but all that means in terms of connection, union and creation. It’s great to feel sexy, juicy, creative, passionate, vibrant and alive, in ALL areas of your life. Feeling enthusiastic about yourself and the world around you is what a healthy chakra 2 loves, taking delight in a cup of tea, a beautiful sunset, the eyes of a friend.  Simple pleasures.  Delicious pleasures, permission to feel pleasure.  

However the distortions in this chakra are great.  One of my chakra teachers Belinda Davidson talks of a distorted Chakra 2 epidemic in our world today. 

Think about the whole consumer cycle of wanting and having more.  Marketing the ideas of bigger, better, faster more all feed into our unhealthy chakra 2’s.

 When you desire something there is a passion, delight and yumminess of having that desire.  But almost immediately you will shoot your desire out into the world to try and find and fulfil it.  What you then notice is lack. That object of desire is missing.  So the distortion of desire becomes lack.   A healthy chakra 2  keeps the energy of desire contained within itself.  The desire feeds the chakra in a good way. You think of a beautiful new idea, and it may have a visual imprint and you just simply enjoy your image and the feeling it gives you, without the thoughts “I can’t afford it”, “I don’t deserve it”, “I don’t really need it”.  If you do attach it onto a certain external object, you get a feeling of lack which makes you feel empty.   You start to believe you need that object, person, money, situation to fill you up, to fulfil your lack.  This is how an addiction cycle begins.  And we live in highly addicted times.

Chakra 3 is the power house of your energy system. It’s like the generator, it shines light on all the other chakras. Called the solar plexus, Chakra 3 energy is to your body what the sun energy is to our planet. 

A healthy chakra 3 means you move clearly and freely in your world, you are rarely afraid of tackling new challenges.  You hold to your own internal moral compass, and you are not afraid of standing up for what you believe is right.  However, neither are you rigid, nor do you impose your beliefs or will to overpower others as you are firm in the light of your own light of truth, and naturally people will be drawn to you.

 A distortion in this chakra results in beliefs such as “I’m not strong/powerful enough” or “It's not fair” or “I have to do it all by myself” (and not ask others for help) or “I HAVE to do it” from a sense of duty or obligation, fearing you will let other people down if you don’t.  Another aspect of chakra 3 not working properly is that you pick up on the world around you and can be very sensitive to it.  “I'm too sensitive to other people/ pollution/ negative energy”

Chakra 4 is the heart chakra. A place of true love for yourself and for others. A healthy heart means you are full of gratitude, acceptance, compassion and care for yourself and for others.  You know the true meaning of service, that when you serve yourself you serve others and when you serve others you serve yourself.

Forgiveness is an important part of healthy chakra 4, where you forgive yourself for your past, see any “failures” as successful ways in which you have tested pathways for your life and seen when they don’t work for you.

Yet, it is important not to work with this chakra alone, you always need a healthy chakra 3 as it is important to keep within your own personal boundaries on matters of love.  A distortion in chakra 4 means you give too much. Many women have this problem, they give and give to their families, without ever really giving to themselves.  Other distortions in this chakra are feelings of meanness, bitterness, jealousy or grief.

A healthy chakra 4 means you love your wonderful life (chakra 1) , you love your desires and pleasures (chakra 2), and you love your power (chakra 3).  The heart chakra is where all three lower chakras become more active and find more clarity through this energy of love.  A distortion of this chakra would result from a feeling of lack “I need them to love me” or absence of self love – hating yourself when you think  “I'm so stupid, sick, depressed, hopeless.” Or a lack of forgiveness, overwhelming grief, holding onto the past.

Chakra 5 is from where you speak your truth to the world.

 It is about being creative and expressing the fullness of your creativity. 

In a way,  Chakra 5 reactivates all your creative juices from chakra 2, but those energies have now moved through your power centre and your heart.  Therefore, what and how you express yourself is more refined.

With a healthy Chakra 5, you feel in full command of your spiritual connection and purpose and can express yourself clearly. Why song touches our soul is because it comes through the throat chakra, the expression of our soul.  How you express yourself and your truth in the world has meaning and purpose and ignites a whole new energy.  You literally or metaphorically sing with joy when this chakra is fully active. A distortion of this chakra would be beliefs like “I can't speak my truth” or “They don't understand me” or “I can't tell them what I think”. 

Chakra 6 is your psychic third eye. It is the energy centre for your intuitive self. A healthy chakra 6 is when you are deeply aware of subtle energies and realms beyond the physical, you utilise all your senses to enhance your intuition and you are not afraid of any information you receive from this energy centre.

In our modern world, many people who are clairvoyant:  see things, or clairaudient: hear things, or clairsentient: feel things,  just silently hold this ability and never develop it because they find it disturbing.  There are only a few  places to get further training in such abilities.  And unfortunately, the world of the psychics and seers has its fair share of charlatans and often is widely discredited. 

Even today the word “witch” has negative connotations, but many healers, coaches, therapists and light workers are in fact modern day witches and wizards.

 When your third eye is active, you activate these innate intuitive abilities.  The journey of spiritual awakening involves using your third eye as your intuitive guide of finding what is  right for you.  To “know” on the deepest level what will support your path and what choices and decisions you make.   Distortions in the third eye can often relate to a past life of being persecuted for having a ‘gift’. “I don't believe it” or “it's all psychic nonsense” and “it too scary/silly/useless to sense other realms” are the types of distortions experienced here. Another distortion is the tendency to have a bias for facts, scientific evidence and a wanting proof before deciding the next course of action.  Thinking about things too much rather than feeling and meditating on them.

Chakra 7 is the 1000 lotus petal opening of your crown chakra. It is the gateway to infinite love and light.  It is your connection portal to go back to where you came from.  Love and Light is your birthright and your true spiritual home. You are opening  to the energies of this centre every time you pray, meditate or do something with complete faith.

You were born with the fontenalla (crown chakra) wide open.  Physically, you can gently touch a baby’s head and feel this opening.  However by the time you formed your sense of “I” or ego (around the age of 2) and started to see yourself as a separate self, your crown chakra was also closed. 

And you may have had very little training or encouragement to open it again.

In this secular and material world, many people today have no connection whatsoever to the divine.  Distortions of the crown chakra can be expressed like “I don't believe in God/life/awareness/consciousness” or “I feel disconnected from life/the universe.”

And the crown chakra can open then get closed again.  People might be shut off from their chakra 7 because of some traumatic or tragic life experience.  They literally lose faith.  Their connection to god is “tested” and as a result their trust in God is lost. A sign of being closed in the crown chakra is how cynical or sceptical a person is about spiritual matters. 

A healthy crown chakra comes from moving through all the other six chakras from root to third eye, in preparation for this opening to the divine.  The recommendation for any chakra meditations is to work with energy  bringing it into the body from the feet and earth and moving up to the crown chakra.  This way any distortions and energy blocks are released before opening to the very pure spiritual energy of white or golden light. In some rare instances starting with opening in the crown chakra can result in a disorientation to the material world, and a psychotic episode.

Conclusion

That concludes this a very brief overview of the 7 basic chakras.

Chakras are an ancient map of body energy, used to navigate, guide, enhance and energize your life.   Learning more about Chakras can support you on your journey to become a master of your own energy.

Study your own energy and how to support your energy system, to shed light on your belief systems, and use your chakra system for your own self-realization.