What Are Chakras by Paula Youmell, RN, Wise Woman Nurse®

Paula Youmell, RN Natural Health Education Herbalist, Yoga, Energy Medicine

*What ARE Chakras? Our Energy Body has these things, called Chakras, which are basically vortexes of Energy. These energy centers regulate the flow of Life Force Energy (Chi, Qi, Prana) through the body. They align along the spine. Think of them as akin to the breaker box and switches in your home’s electrical system. The breakers regulate where and how the electricity in your home flows. Stagnant heavy energy in your chakras can give clues to the ills in your body, mind, and spirit. Heavy, congested, stagnant energy in our chakras can impede the free flow of Life Force Energy in your body. This means your cells, tissues, and organs are not getting the full, rich supply of Life Force Energy (why we do Yoga, acupuncture, massage, reiki, etc.). Use my visualization below to assist in finding the location of your Chakras. Breathe deeply into each Chakra: inhale – pause breath for a moment – exhale as a meditative way to clear heavy energy from your Chakras and your Energy Body as a whole. Pretend you are pulling breath into each chakra, one by one, as if there was a straw in the center of the chakra. I also like to visualize each chakra having a sliding barn door. When I am breathing into a particular chakra, I open the barn door, breathe in and swirl energy, and then slide the barn door closed after I exhale. Work up, from Root to Crown Chakra, if you need to raise your energy level. Work down, from Crown to Root Chakra, if you need to calm your energy. When you finish, take 3-4 slow, deep, belly breaths and move on with your day… offer a Heart Centered Prayer Mudra and Namaste to Self, all Beings, Mother Earth, and the Whole Universe.

Root Chakra: Base of spine, family, roots, ancestors, sense of safety, legs, feet, skeletal system, Mother Earth and Our Connection to Her Bones, the Stones of the Earth. Our life history. How grounded and stable we are in body, mind, intellect, & spirit. Element: Earth.

Sacral Chakra: Low abdomen, hips, reproductive & elimination systems. Creativity, empowerment, relationships, money, merging energy w/others: sacred sensuality. How we flow with life. Element: Water.

Solar Plexus Chakra: Self-will, ego, personal power, motivation, stomach, liver, upper GI. How you digest things in your physical, emotional, intellectual, and **spiritual body. Gut feelings. Element: Fire. Heart Chakra: Emotions, breath, gratitude, compassion, love, nurturing. Chest, lungs, shoulders. Middle Chakra: the Integration of Earth (lower chakras) with ***Heaven (upper chakras). Element: Air. Throat Chakra: Your Voice of Body, Mind, Spirit, & Intellect. Self-expression, regulation, control. Teeth, jaw, neck, thyroid. How You Voice who You are in this World. How you deeply listen to others for compassionate understanding. Element: Ether/Space. Third Eye Chakra: Brow, eyes, perception, intuition, brain: physical & spiritual, psychological conditions, nervous system, pineal gland. How we see The Light. How we intuit wisdom. Element: Ether / Light. Crown Chakra. Top of head, connection to the Divine (we are the Divine), spiritual nature, sense of purpose. Element: Ether / Cosmic Energy.

Daily Visualization to Ground Your Energy Body This takes 5-7 minutes. Sit outside with your feet in contact with the ground. Urban dwellers, sit and visualize your feet in the grass (if you have concrete, sit barefoot connected to it), connected to Mother Earth. Close your eyes. Visualize yourself being showered by healing light, water, rose petals, whatever feels healing to you: literally showering around your starting from your head and flowing down to your feet and into the ground. This cleanses your aura, energy body. Next visualize opening your Root and Crown Chakras. Visualize sending a taproot deep into the Earth from your root chakra area. Visualize a funnel of sparkling light above your head, large open end of the funnel up and the narrow end pointing into your crown chakra. Visualize white light (violet light, pink light… the color that seems healing to you) coming from the ground, up through your taproot into your Root Chakra, turning at the Crown Chakra and going back into the Earth at your Root Chakra taking all heavy energy back into the Earth through your taproot to be absorbed and transformed. Do this twice. Next, visualize white light coming from above, down through your Crown Chakra sparkling funnel, circling back up at your Root Chakra taking heavy energy into the Sky, Heavens, by moving out through your Crown Chakra funnel. Do this twice. Next, visualize white light coming in at the Crown Chakra, turns at the Root Chakra and turns again at the Crown Chakra to go back into the Earth through the Root Chakra. Do these visualizations while breathing deeply and with a sense of inner calm. Visualize yourself clearing out your taproot of all heavy energy sending it into the earth and then pulling up your taproot. Close your root chakra. Dissolve your sparkly funnel back into the cosmos. Now close your Crown Chakras to keep your energy sealed. Finally, swirl white (or your healing color) light energy around your body, from feet to head, like a gentle twister of peace moving up your body. This spiral protects you from negative energy and other’s stress. Say a prayer to walk in peace and beauty through your day.

The Tree of Life gets overlayed on the chakras when viewing the chakras from some shamanic traditions. The roots of the tree are the underworld where our protective spirits live. The roots represent the first three chakras of the physicalness of the body. The trunk of the tree represents the world we live in and the interactions and lessons we learn. The heart chakra is the tree trunk. Maybe a reminder to walk this path of life from our heart space. The branches of the tree represent the upper world, the home of our spirit wisdom keepers. This is the upper 3 chakras: throat, 3rd eye, and crown; the ethereal world. A very simple definition of shamanism is living in rhythm and sacred reciprocity with Momma Earth & the Cosmos. *Chakras are identified in ancient healing systems. How they are seen, perceived, and used varies from tradition to tradition. The modern, New Age system has labeled the Chakras with colors, emotions, corresponding glands, traumas, etc. I will not, for a second, say there isn’t truth to the New Age perspective. The beauty of life is that Humans live, learn, grow, transform, and transmute on their spiritual journeys as individuals and as a Collective Soul. We are raising our vibrational level. I believe Chakras are a part of this. How can they not be? They are the “electrical breaker system” of our Energetic Bodies. When I studied ancient Chakra knowledge, with Christopher Hareesh Wallis – A Sanskrit Scholar, the information was different than the New Age interpretation. I appreciate both interpretations. I like the expansion of knowledge with so called New Age thinking. Humans continue to grow into who we are collectively. **spiritual body: energy body ***Heaven: spiritual concept of peaceful space, not Heaven vs. Hell, or maybe it is!