Introduction to Chakras

I believe magic to be an esoteric way of changing or growing every situation into something wonderful. Your centers of energy, known as chakras, is the tool you’re born with to help you manifest magic in your life.

When your chakras are out of alignment, your reality can stink; life can seem dull, unrewarding, and a struggle. You can feel unhappy, unloved, and even unhealthy when your chakras are not in alignment.

When your chakras are aligned, goals are met, challenges are overcome, abundance is within reach and you’re happy more often than not.

Across cultures that utilize magic to create change in life, it’s common practice to invest time in the maintenance of your chakras. My goal for today’s article is to introduce you to these energy centers and provide you with a beginner practice to help align your chakras.

What are chakras?

As mentioned, chakras are the energy centers you are born with. Chakras are connected to our physical and auric bodies. The physical body consists of energy that vibrates very slowly, which is why it appears to our physical eyes to be solid. The physical body is created from and sustained by the layers of the auric field known as the auric bodies. The auric bodies are outside of our normal perception because their energies vibrate too fast for us to see with our physical eyes.

Just as your organs are core parts of your physical body, chakras are at the core of your energetic/subtle body.

Chakras impact our health and wellness because they are responsible for processing the energies that enter our auric field and distributing those energies to different parts of our body. For example, you may get a stiff neck from spending the day with someone who is in a grouchy mood. You may feel exhausted after spending time with someone who is complaining about how rotten their life is.

Chakras impact the energies we attract from the universe (love/abundance/finances, etc) because our chakras are also responsible for broadcasting our energies via our auric layers. The universe will always return what you put out there. For example, people who broadcast a feeling of gratitude find that they attract more to be grateful for. People who carry this belief that it’s them against the world tend to cause others around them to instinctively avoid them.

Chakras are also your connection to divine universal energies and the Divine’s direct connection to you. Your 4th, 6th, and 7th chakras assist in accessing Divine energy.

Different practices number these chakras anywhere from 7 to 114. I generally work with the basic 7 as they are the major chakras. These are the chakras I’d like to introduce you to, today.

First chakra

The Muladhara chakra is also known as the root chakra and it is your base of power. This chakra establishes survival, stability, and security in the physical world. It is where you create your foundation and store your beliefs about yourself.

Its primary function is to assist you in meeting your basic needs for survival, gracefully, and with ease. It focuses your attention on what you need, day-to-day in order to survive, and thrive and stimulates your ability to reach out for and demand its fulfillment.

A healthy first chakra allows you to have confidence in the truth that the Universe is fully supporting you in meeting your requirements to grow and thrive in this life. It supports you in feeling worthy and worthwhile.

When this chakra is affected by unwanted energies, you can feel stuck in life (personally and professionally), anxious a lot, insecure about yourself, and unsafe. It can also produce physical effects that manifest in your bones, on your skin, and in your kidneys and liver.

Second chakra

The Svadhisthana chakra is the 2nd chakra. This is where your emotional and creative energies can be addressed. My belief is that when the root chakra is “happy” that energy is exhibited here, translated into emotions. If you’re feeling down, that emotion can be traced back to survival, security, or stability issue.

These first chakra issues can cause unwanted energies such as selfishness, apathy, passivity, grouchiness, extreme anger, depression, and fear. Fear is known to throw the 2nd chakra off balance and manifest as back pain.

Compulsions may appear, such as obsessive attachments to relationships and objects, over-emotionality, and an inability to “control” emotions. Unwanted energies can physically manifest as anorexia, bulimia, addiction, and/or sexual dysfunction and cause issues in the bladder, sexual organs, lower back, womb, and kidneys.

A healthy second chakra accepts all of our emotions, positive and negative, and doesn’t hold on to them or repress them. This doesn’t mean we must act on our feelings; just feel our feelings. If we only want to feel positive and avoid difficult or darker feelings, our opportunities to learn would be cut in half.

Our dark or difficult feelings are just as essential as our lighter, easier feelings when it comes to understanding who we are and how to create. They are simply a feedback system for our choices and we need them all to learn. Feelings let us know when we have fallen out of harmony with our spirit. Unwanted energies can physically manifest as issues with sexuality, the bladder, and parts of the lower intestine.

Third Chakra

The Manipura chakra is the 3rd chakra and it is a source of personal power, your self-esteem, warrior energy, and the power of transformation. The energy here is what fires your willpower and self-esteem. The third chakra influences your objective mind, your intellect, and reason. When healthy it gives you the ability to be mentally clear and make effective decisions concerning your direction in life.

The third chakra gives you the courage to stick up for yourself, say “no” to the things that don’t serve you, to put up healthy personal boundaries, and remain strong in the face of challenge. When the third chakra is open and healthy you recognize what is important and meaningful in life and you make healthy choices without compromise or fear.

Unwanted energies can physically manifest in the digestive and nervous systems and as inflammatory issues such as arthritis and autoimmune diseases. The emotional effects of this chakra being unbalanced are low self-esteem, meekness, powerlessness, confusion, and indecision.

Fourth Chakra

The Anahata chakra is our fourth chakra and serves as a bridge between our body, mind, emotions, and spirit. Through this chakra, we relate compassionately to others. From this chakra, we generate the feelings of unconditional love and forgiveness for one another and ourselves, and gratitude for every moment we have.

This chakra is also the foundation of healing energies. When healers call Divine energy into their being from their crown chakra, it moves down into the Anahata chakra before making its way out through the smaller chakras in our hands.

Unwanted energies can physically manifest in the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. The emotional effects of this chakra being unbalanced are low self-esteem, feeling unloved, and being overly critical of everyone, everything and of yourself. Also, feelings of suspicion, loneliness, viciousness, and defensiveness can occur.

Fifth Chakra

The Vishuddha chakra is our 5th chakra and it’s where our power of manifestation comes from. Have you ever heard the saying, “Words have power”? They weren’t kidding. When you speak your truth for the good of all, you can be sure that your 5th chakra is in a good place. When our fifth chakra is healthy, we communicate with integrity and clarity for positive and uplifting energy.

Unwanted energies can physically manifest in the throat, thyroid, trachea, esophagus, parathyroid, hypothalamus, neck, mouth, teeth and/or ears. The emotional effects of this chakra being unbalanced can cause you to hide your true feelings, don’t listen, tune others out, and get stuck in negative thought patterns. You may find you talk a lot about nothing, instigate drama through gossips and wish ill on others constantly.

Sixth Chakra

The Ajna chakra is our 6th chakra and is also known as our third eye. This is your center of intuition. Your “sixth sense”. The energy here is commonly utilized to see with clarity and accuracy. It ignites the ability to perceive, discover, understand, dream, imagine, and visualize. It is the gift of clear sight.

Unwanted energies can physically manifest in the head, the eyes, all the sense organs, the brain, and the nervous system. From an intuitive standpoint, we can experience a disconnect from spirit, leaving us feeling lost or with the feeling of walking blindly and the tendencies to make decisions, not in our best interest.

Seventh Chakra

The Sahasrara Chakra is located at the top of the head/crown and is our connection to the universe and the Divine. It is our source of enlightenment and spiritual connection allowing us to experience unity and the selfless realization that everything is connected.

It focuses our attention on the spiritual side of life and when strong and aligned, the Sahasrara Chakra leads you to understand the deeper nature of all things and realize that everything is made of spiritual energy. This chakra is a gateway for energy healing, to both receive and channel.

Unwanted energies can cause a deep feeling of being disconnected from the Divine. You may feel extremely negative, agitated, and/or disassociated, leaving you open to psychic attacks and paranormal attacks. You will also feel blocked from Divine healing energies.

Beginner practice to help align your chakras

Everyone’s situation is different and some may need to work on aligning their chakras more than others, but everyone needs to start somewhere. Here’s an easy meditation practice, to begin with.

Mudra is a Sanskrit word for “gesture.” We can use mudras with mantras to cleanse and align our chakras. Mantras, when spoken or chanted, direct the healing power of Prana (life force energy) and, in traditional Vedic practices, can be used to energize and access spiritual states of consciousness.

The chart below lists a mantra and mudra for each chakra. Daily practice is advised. For each chakra, you could chant the mantra either 108 times or for 3 minutes while holding your hands in the mudra position.

Before beginning, find a quiet spot and sit comfortably. Chant the mantra silently or out loud, whatever feels good to you. Listening to yourself say the mantra and focusing on the chakra’s color helps to keep you focused while chanting. Download a printable copy by clicking here.

I honestly believe, and have experienced time and again with many people, that the first step to improvement in life, is aligning your chakras. When you need to clear your chakras, here’s my technique:

Please note: I am a certified Master Reiki practitioner trained in energy healing. I am not, nor am I holding myself out to be a doctor/physician, nurse, or any other medical professional, psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, counselor, or social worker, registered dietician, or licensed nutritionist. I am not providing health care, medical or nutritional therapy services, or attempting to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure any physical, mental or emotional issue, disease, or condition. This article is for informational purposes only and does not intend to substitute professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This article is not reflective of the beliefs of Medium, its publications, or its editors.