By Madi Eunis
@i.am.madgic
Chakras, one of the most misunderstood concepts in the west. There is so much talk about aligning the chakras, but what does that actually mean or look like? We talk about seven, when there are over a hundred chakras. I am here to discuss the difference between the west perspective, and the truth about the energetic flow in our bodies.
Let's Break it Down
In the west, we talk a lot about these spinning wheels that represent different energy centers in the body. While this isn’t fully ‘wrong’ per say, it is misleading.
Chakras are essentially the point where the nadis meet. The nadis are the pathways or channels of prana that flow through the body. Prana is our lifeforce energy: our breath, our energy, and our ability to heal ourselves. When the energy doesn’t flow as well to these junctions, that’s when we lose our access to prana. Hence, there is a lesser ability to heal ourselves, which is how we can grow sick: physically, mentally, spiritually.
We talk about seven chakras in the west, which I will generally stick to, however, there are really 114 chakras, and these make up the seven energy centers that we relate to. According to Sadhguru, two of these chakras are located outside the body, and four others cannot be worked on directly, but in accordance with the other 108 chakras.
The more chakras we access and awaken, the more inner dimensions we open and access. It’s important to begin our awareness and work towards the main energy centers in the body first to understand more of what we need to move through so we can access more of our energy centers outside the seven.
The Seven Chakras
Starting with the crown down to the root:
7: Sahasrara: Crown
6: Ajna: Third Eye
5: Vishuddi: Throat
4: Anahata: Heart
3: Manipura: Solar Plexus
2: Svadhishthana: Sacral
1: Muladhara: Root
Muladhara Chakra: Root
The root chakra is located in the lower hips and reproduction organs. It is the foundation of our entire being. Think about it this way; the hips hold up the entire body. They have the strength to hold the organs, the bones, and even our big heads. If we didn’t have our hips, we wouldn’t be able to hold ourselves up.
Symbolically, this represents the root chakra. It is our foundation, our inner child, the version of ourselves that we have built on over the years of growing up. The root chakra is also the place that we push all our unfelt emotions to. All the trauma, all the things that have affected the way we move through life, rests in the hips. Think when you try not to cry, you push them down. The energy moves down but it’s not released—the hips receive it and hold it until you cry it out.
It is also located in the place that we create life, so it holds a lot of our sexual life force energy. In order to create any type of life, whether that be a child, a business, an art project, we need to have fertile soil. In order for that to happen, we have to look at all the dirt, all the weeds, all the toxic soil and clear it out so we can create something in its purest form. That’s how you work with this chakra, by accessing and acknowledging your fears. Then, you work with those fears, set them at ease, so you can rebuild. This is where you plant your seeds.
Svadhishthana Chakra: Sacral
Once you have fertile soil, then you can plant and nurture the seeds. The sacral chakra is located just below the belly button. Symbolically, this represents the womb, whether or not you have one. In order to bring something into existence, we have to give it time, nutrients, and love for it to grow.
This applies with fertility, of course, but also our ability to connect with our own emotions. The Sacral Chakra is represented by water, so it is directly associated with our emotions, as well as our intuition, sensuality, sexuality, creativity, and flow. Now that we’ve created the fertile soil in the root chakra, now it is time to create the seeds. This is the creative process which is step one to creation.
To work with this chakra is to connect with your creative nature. Connecting with creativity requires vulnerability, and emotion. Creativity is an expression of our souls, and the soul is in a body that has gone through a lot. We can channel our fears, our desires, any emotion that is impacted in the root chakra into a creative expression which looks different for everyone. Singing, dancing, painting, writing, woodshopping, gardening, etc. There are so many ways to be creative. Get creative about being creative!
Manipura Chakra: Solar Plexus
The seeds are planted, but more energy and power is needed to make the seeds grow and thrive. This is the energy of the solar plexus, our inner sun–located above the belly button. In order for the seeds to grow, we need energy from the sun. The Solar Plexus is this energy. It is powerful, strong, and takes up space. It demands boundaries to protect our growth process.
When we don’t have access to this energy, we allow the critters, the polluted air, and the negative energy to infiltrate our garden we’re building. If we don’t have some kind of boundaries, people can stomp all over our hard work. The critters can eat away at our plants. This is where we choose who has access to us and to our creations. You choose the people, the things, the places, that are allowed into your space.
If we don’t have strong boundaries, we allow our beautiful creations—ourselves—to be walked all over, and taken advantage of. On the other hand, if we have too much sun, we can burn our own gardens—we can isolate ourselves and ruin our own creation that was meant to be shared. Like everything in this world, there is a balance. The solar plexus energy is strong like the sun, and it is to be respected and used with care to protect yourself while also letting yourself shine.
Anahata Chakra: Heart
With the past three chakras strong, fertile, and stable, it allows our heart to soar. In lots of ancient cultures around the world, the heart is the seat of the soul. It is where the soul resides in our bodies, in the center: ultimately connecting the lower body with the upper body.
Without the heart, we don’t have life. We don’t have blood pumping through our veins sending oxygen, nutrients, minerals, throughout the body. As the heart chakra also includes the area of the lungs–if we don’t have our heart chakras, we don’t have air. This is the center of our own individual life.
The soul–the heart, can only fully come through when it feels safe and stable enough to be seen. It needs the stable foundation you just created. It needs you to be safe and secure in who you are so you can fully blossom. It requires strength and resilience to fully open up. We have to be secure enough in ourselves to allow our true hearts to shine. The heart adds your unique medicine and expression to your creation, to the plants that are beginning to grow. It will only come through when you listen to it, and allow it to be different from other people.
Vishuddhi Chakra: Throat
All right. The garden is blooming, your creation is complete and ready to be shared…YOU are ready to be shared with the world. Now that we’ve built these solid foundations, we’ve discovered and harnessed our innate uniqueness and feel secure enough to express it. It’s time to express it.
Vishuddhi Chakra is located in the throat. It is your voice, which is influenced by your heart. Your voice is physically unique, as it sounds different from any one else. Yet your voice is more than just the sound, it is your expression to the world—how you interact, communicate, and express yourself.
When we don’t feel confident in ourselves, when we tell lies or mask our truths, when we filter ourselves to make other people comfortable, we are ultimately holding ourselves back from expressing all the beauty we just created for ourselves in the four other chakras.
Our throat chakra filters the world around us as well. It either allows or deflects external truths and expressions into our own expression. This is where we pick up a lot of external influences, and it's up to us to decide what we agree to and not. We can have such beauty within us, but it’s all in how we send it out and how we let other people affect that beauty.
Ajna Chakra: Third Eye
The third eye chakra is found in between your eyebrows. This chakra is the seat of your intuition. It is how we perceive ourselves, our creations, our garden. It is how we navigate the world. We can find clarity in this chakra, but it can also be where we find confusion.
It is the place where we choose to live in our own heaven or hell. The place where we attach to identities and personalities. When we connect with this chakra, we connect with the way we connect to the people and the world around us. How we let other truths, perspectives, intelligence, affect our bodies, minds, and souls (and the other chakras of course). If we allow fear from our roots to cloud our vision, it can affect how we show up in the world, how we express ourselves, and stand up for ourselves. The mind can either propel us forward in our gardens and allow us to continue to grow with new ideas to bring in, or it can wither it with our anxious and doubting thoughts.
Working with this chakra is like breaking down the constructs of the mind until you find the clarity and true space of intuition. It’s a lot of understanding your thought process and why it flows in that way. It’s also a lot of reprogramming the mind to change your perception of reality. For example: it’s a really sunny and hot day. You can either live in the hell of that reality: it’s too hot, you’re sweating, tired, and only the AC can make you feel better. OR you can live in your own heaven, thanking the sun for the vitamin D, letting the sweat release toxins in the body, and get some coconut water to regulate your temperature.
Sahasrara: Crown
The crown chakra is on the top of your head and is ultimately your connection with the divine, universe, God, your Spirit Guides, etc. This is where we can receive downloads from the Universe about our path, and receive guidance if we are open to it. It can inspire us, give us ideas of what to plant, or bring to life in this lifetime. It is in the ethers, the spiritual realm. When we receive ideas, we can either keep it in this other dimension that lives in our minds, or we can channel it and root it down—bringing it into our physical life.
The word ecstasy comes up a lot in the eastern explanation of the crown chakra. It is the place in which we reach Samadhi and find the reconnection to the general consciousness. In this life, it is here for guidance, and the more we become aware of it, the more awareness our soul will have to find its way back to the collective consciousness when we leave this body.
Symptoms of imbalance and signs to reconnect with this energy: hopelessness, anxiety, worry, lack of trust or belief in God/Universe/Something bigger.
To work with all chakras
It’s a lot of shadow work. A lot of asking ourselves the ‘why’ question until we meet the root of the problem, habit, tendency, fear, etc. Being honest with yourself is the most important part. We create our own lies to justify our imbalances rather than working through them.
Meditation and hatha yoga is really the remedy for all chakras. The more we step into these yoga practices, the more flow we create in our bodies. With these practices, we increase the pranic flow, so it increases the ability to heal ourselves. It’s less about trying to open or align the chakras, and more about moving the flow and opening the nadis in the body to stimulate the natural flow.
Do More Research!
This is my perception of the chakras through my reiki and yoga training, but there is so much more science, knowledge, and understanding behind the chakras. It is a very condensed concept in the west, but extremely expansive in the eastern perspective. I encourage you to always look deeper—to not just take what I say and let it be the whole truth. This is a well that goes deep. I provide links below with yogis that explain these subjects in even more depth.
Chakras allow us to work with all of these different aspects of ourselves and find flow regardless of what we’ve been through. Like your organs, you don’t need to see them to believe they’re there.
We might not see them, but they are felt—symbols of how we feel and navigate the world.
