Hello again, readers. This post is Part 2 of the blog series, “Balancing Your Chakras” If you have yet to read part one, please click the link below to read that before proceeding:
In the initial post, I discussed the first three Chakras: the Root, Sacral, and Solar Plexus Chakras. The first two Chakras that I covered (Root, and Sacral) are egoic and individually focused. The third, fourth, and fifth Chakras (Solar Plexus, Heart, and Throat) are said to move us into the realm of the interpersonal. The last two Chakras (Third-Eye and Crown) are transpersonal, meaning that these Chakras help us connect with the bigger picture – these Chakras transcend our material existence and move us into the realm of the spiritual and mental.
Heart Chakra
The element of the Heart Chakra is air, and the purpose or drive of the Heart Chakra is to expand beyond ourselves, past egocentrism and toward connection with others. The lifelong process of socialization is associated with the Heart Chakra. During socialization, we create a persona to present to others. We craft our persona based on messages we internalize about what other people do and do not accept about us.
The Heart Chakra may become imbalanced as a result of one abandoning the authentic self and living excessively in the persona. Additionally, the heart is affected by grief caused by experiences of loss, rejection, abuse, and trauma.
There are many ways and reasons why we mask our authenticity. One example being how many neurodivergent individuals (individuals with ADHD, sensory processing disorders, learning disabilities, and/or on the autism spectrum) learn to socially mask the traits that make them different.
Masking one's true personality is not a behavior exclusive to neurodivergent individuals, though - we all do it to some extent. When we sacrifice too much of our authenticity to please others, there are costs. It becomes exhausting to remain "in character" all the time. And when we reject, or deny a certain part of ourselves, that part will hide in our shadow where it still manages to influence our thinking, feeling, and behaving, just outside of our conscious awareness.
To find balance in the Heart, start by examining your relationship to yourself and others. Explore the core beliefs that you hold about your own worth, value, and vulnerability.
Journal Prompts for exploring your relationship with yourself:
What is one thing that you like about yourself? Discuss this trait/characteristic/value.
Name something that you judge yourself about.How did this trait come to be?
What has happened that encouraged this this way of being?
What are the healthy roots of this trait? (Ex - people pleasing may come from a desire for harmony and cooperation.)
Forgive yourself for developing this trait - write a message of forgiveness and compassion to yourself.
These same prompts can be used to examine your relationship with a specific person:
What do I like about this person?
What do I judge this person for?
Why might they be this way?
What are the healthy roots of this trait?
In what ways do I exhibit the healthy and unhealthy aspects of the trait that I'm judging in this person?
Write a message of compassion and forgiveness to this person for what you judge them about.
As you uncover your relationship with yourself, you may come to see that you have some maladaptive core beliefs about yourself and your relationship to others. You may have a sense of unworthiness or feel unlovable. It can be hard to come face to face with some of these beliefs and attitudes, but through practice, you can cultivate a self-loving relationship with yourself.
One thing to practice daily to improve your self-love is talking to yourself with a kind inner voice. It takes practice to do this automatically, but every time you notice an overly critical or judgmental thought, let it be, and then answer that thought with a more balanced and compassionate perspective. It can also be helpful to stay kind things to yourself as you gaze at your reflection in the mirror, as well. This can seem strange, but as you repeat this process over a series of days, you will eventually start to believe in your own worth.
Finally, to balance the Heart, tend to and strengthen your current relationships, and know that quality trumps quantity when it comes to your relationships. Cultivate relationships that are collaborative, cooperative, fair, just and mutual. Look at what you can give in your relationships and examine your part in any conflicts that arise.
Throat Chakra
The Throat Chakra is all about communication and creative self-expression. It is represented by the element of sound. The developmental stage of this Chakra is said to be ~7-10 years old, and the task of this stage is to learn to communicate, express, and listen. Our ability to communicate is so important because all learning takes place through communication, and ultimately verbal language allows us to cooperate with others to collaboratively create and influence our experienced reality.
How do you uncover your core beliefs relative to your throat Chakra? Think of how your words, ideas, and emotional expression was treated in your family of origin. Were you encouraged to speak your mind? Were you told that it was polite to be quiet and non-imposing?
Observe how you use your voice in your normal day-to-day. Imbalance in the throat Chakra may feel like constantly holding your tongue, being fearful to speak up, or feeling like what you have to say isn’t important. You may find yourself speaking quietly or constantly being interrupted. Imbalance may also show up as excessive talking, interrupting, and loudly dominating conversation. It takes two to communicate, and listening is just as important (maybe even more so!) than speaking.
To find balance in the Throat Chakra, work on your listening skills. Become mindful of when and why you are speaking. When you find yourself in conversation with someone, think about whether you are waiting your turn to speak your mind, or if you are actively listening to the words and subtext of what they are saying. Listening is more than just hearing words, though. Listening involves paying attention to body language, noticing facial expressions, and conveying a stance of active listening.
Additionally, to find balance, strive to live authentically and move toward speaking your truth. And how to do that? First, aim to reduce the amount of lies you tell, well-intentioned or otherwise. On average, we lie about 1-2 times per day. Become mindful of where it is in your day that you lie or feel tempted to bend the truth. Do you find yourself placating others with your words by telling them what they'd like to hear? Do you find yourself stretching the truth to make yourself look a little better? Recognize that we all lie from time to time, and that striving toward congruence and truth in your life is an important part of balancing your Throat Chakra.
Finally, to speak your truth assertively and respectfully, use "I Statements" to share your thoughts, feelings, and point of view with another. I statements are particularly useful when you want to talk to set boundaries with someone or let someone know how they have negatively affected you.
“You” statement: You are SO frustrating, you never listen to a word that I say.
“I” statement: I was frustrated yesterday when I came home from work and tried to talk about my day. I felt rejected when I tried to tell you what happened at work and you just walked away
Third Eye Chakra
The element of the Third Eye Chakra is light. The developmental period associated with the Third Eye Chakra is adolescence, and the drive of the Third Eye is toward "clear thought, spiritual contemplation, and self-reflection." During adolescence, we begin to start to see the picture beyond just our own experience. We tend to become more self-reflective during this stage, as well.
Whenever we have an “aha” moment, or “finally put two-and-two together”, our Third Eye is shining the light of perception on the bigger picture.
What causes imbalance in the Third Eye? To start, traumatic memories may cause us to tune out triggering or upsetting memories/experiences/situations through dissociation. The result is a stunting of perception, thus a closing of the Third Eye.
To find balance in the Third Eye Chakra, we all must address obstacles to "clear perception" - or seeing ourselves and others as we truly are. Everybody has blind spots in their perception due to experience and personality, but some obstacles are pretty universal.
For example, many of us tend to have a slight negativity bias in our cognition. This feature of humanity has helped us survive and prepare for the unpredictable and often dangerous world around us. This negativity bias has downsides, though. When we overly fixate on what's going wrong, we lose touch with our grace, and we lose sight of the beauty inherent in life. We also might find ourselves in a negative thinking spiral, stuck focused internally on our own flaws.
Image Via Aspen Neurotherapy
Starting a gratitude practice can help us shift away from negativity and pessimism and toward contentment. One way to practice gratitude is to write in a gratitude journal daily. You only need to spend five minutes writing down what you are grateful for that day and what you are looking forward to in order to start changing your mindset.
Additionally, starting a regular practice of meditation can help you to see things more clearly, from the perspective "the observer." Through mediation we watch our thoughts as they pop in and out of our minds. Over time we begin to notice patterns of negative thoughts, "untrue" thoughts, and unhelpful thoughts as we observe our minds in meditation. We begin to put less stock in the thoughts that we notice, and identify less with the thoughts that do not serve us, or help illuminate any wisdom or truth for us.
Crown Chakra
The element of the Crown Chakra is pure consciousness. What exactly is consciousness, anyway? Consciousness doesn't take up time or space. It's the timeless observer who is always seeing, if we can just tune in. There isn't really one developmental stage associated with the Crown Chakra. The drive of the Crown Chakra is to become aware of awareness itself, in other words, to become self-aware. This is a process that takes a lifetime to master, and even then you still wouldn’t have achieved full self-awareness. Consciousness is always experiencing and evolving.
Imbalance in the Crown Chakra can express as excess - living in one's head, always trying to figure things out, being overly focused on self-reflection. It can also express as deficiency - being too anchored in the physical world, exhibiting rigid thinking, and feeling separated from the divine.
Attachments are the main cause of imbalance in the Crown Chakra. When we are attached to a certain idea of how things "should be," or attached to rigid expectations of how something "should happen," our consciousness becomes distracted with these attachments and is taken out of a present moment focus. As we overcome our attachments to materials, people, ideas, and expectations, our consciousness is free to frolic in the present moment.
Thus, balance in the Crown Chakra is "achieved" by releasing one's consciousness from the burden of attachment.
How do we do this? To start, continue to deepen your meditation practice. Continue to cultivate your relationship with your own inner observer and higher power. This higher power may be spiritual for you, or it may just symbolize your own inner wisdom. Some people refer to this higher power/inner wisdom as the "wise mind" - a state of mind that finds a balance between the rational and emotional mind.
Matt Valentine, author of the The Buddhaimonia Blog, writes about the 7 step process that one can use to become mindful of and overcome their attachments:
1. Meditate on attachment itself:
Create a list of your attachments. There will be many, but just record the ones that are most salient for you. Choose one attachment to meditate on and sit with.
2. Meditate on the effect that attachment has on.
Choose one attachment you wrote down and mediate on it. Ask yourself, why did this attachment form? What do you hope to get from holding this attachment. What is the current effect of this attachment on your life?
3. Meditate on the impermanence of all things.
Nothing lasts forever. The more that we sit with the fact of impermanence in our world, the easier it is to see attachments for what they are - a desire to control that which is unpredictable, uncontrollable, and impermanent.
4. Meditate on your death.
This one sounds daunting, but Matt writes that it's an important part in the process. Mediate on what it would be like to die and lose all that you are attached to? Imagine what it would be like to lose everything, your identity, your possessions, your relationships, your memories, etc…
5. Meditate on the interbeing of all things
Everything is interconnected, if only we could notice. When we form an attachment, we don't just form an attachment to one object, item, idea, or thing. We attach to the whole network of things that made the initial attachment possible. Matt writes about food, mentioning that when we eat a meal, there is so much unseen labor, money, resources, and time that goes behind the meal. Nothing is isolated in our world, and it can be liberating to see the bigger picture of how all things are interconnected.
6. Meditate on past attachments, and whether they led to long term peace or happiness.
Ask yourself what you wanted to get from your attachments, as well as what you actually got.
7. Meditate on the ego - or your attachment to attachment itself.
Continue to explore your relationship to attachment. Attachments are not easily broken, that's okay. As human beings, we will always hold attachments of some sort. The important thing is to become aware of the desires and intentions behind your attachments. Consider why you continue to attach yourself to things.
A Final Note from the Author:
“I hope you enjoyed reading about the Chakras as much as I enjoyed writing about them! My hope in writing this was to share a profound philosophical system with others. The Chakras are a wonderful tool we can use to become more self-aware, to conceptualize our needs on many levels, and to understand all of the different drives and motivations within us.”
Meet the Author: Sarah Miles, Graduate Student Intern
Sarah is a graduate student intern at Space Between Counseling Services. Sarah provides individual counseling for Maryland residents working through anxiety, depression, perfectionism, and stigmas. Sarah takes a collaborative approach to therapy and aims to work with clients to help them cultivate self-love and find balance + wellness.
While she is not in school and working with clients, Sarah spends her time listening to and playing music, reading, walking outside, watching her favorite shows, and spending time with family.