THE FIRST CHAKRA: TRIBAL POWER

Location:

Base of the spine.

Energy connection to the physical body:

Spinal column, rectum, legs, bones, feet and immune system.

Energy connection to the emotional / mental body:

The first chakra is the foundation of emotional and mental health. Emotional and psychological stability originate in the family unit and early social environment. Various mental illnesses are generated out of family dysfunctions, including multiple personalities, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and destructive patterns of alcoholism.

Symbolic / perceptual connection:

First chakra energy manifests in our need for logic, order, and structure. This energy orients us in time and space and to our five senses. As children, we perceive and learn about the physical world through our five senses. First chakra energy has trouble interpreting our lives symbolically, for our five senses give us literal perceptions and cause us to take things at face value. Not until we are older are we able to seek out the symbolic meaning of events and relationships.

Primary fears:

Fears of physical survival, abandonment by the group and loss of physical order.

Primary strengths:

Tribal/family identity, bonding, and the tribal honor code: the support and loyalty that give one a sense of safety and connection to the physical world.

Sacred truth:

The sacred truth of the first chakra is that ALL IS ONE.

Activities to nurture first chakra

Go out into nature regularly for walks, hikes and other outdoor activities. Feeling your feet planted firmly on the ground will literally help to “ground” you. Any physical exercise from lifting weights to dancing will help you to feel in touch with your body and strengthen your sense of personal power.

Take responsibility for your financial situation, a good question to ask yourself is: How well do I handle my finances? And answer honestly! Take actions to improve your situation if it is not to your liking.

THE SECOND CHAKRA: THE POWER OF RELATIONSHIPS

Location:

Lower abdomen to navel area.

Energy connection to the physical body:

Sexual organs, large intestine, lower vertebrae, pelvis, hip area, appendix and bladder.

Energy connection to the emotional / mental body:

This chakra resonates to our need for relationships with other people and our need to control, to some extent, the dynamics of our physical environment. All the attachments by which we maintain control over our external lives, such as authority, other people, or money are linked through this chakra to our energy field and physical body. The illnesses that originate in this energy center are activated by the fear of losing control. Prostate or ovarian cancer, chronic pain in the lower back and hips, and arthritis are a few of the more common health problems. Problems at menopause, such as hot flashes and depression are second chakra energy dysfunctions. Fibroids result from second chakra creativity energy that was not birthed and from life energy that is directed into dead end jobs or relationships.

Symbolic / perceptual connection:

The energy in this chakra enables us to generate a sense of personal identity and protective psychological boundaries. As we continually asses our personal strength in regard to the external world and its physically seductive forces – such as sex, money, addictive substances, or other people – the second chakra energy of a healthy physical ego keeps us able to interact with that world without having to negotiate or “sell” ourselves. It is the energy of self-sufficiency, a survival instinct for being in the world.

Primary fears:

Fears of loss of control, or being controlled by another, through the dominating power of events or conditions such as addiction, rape, betrayal, impotence, financial loss, abandonment by our primary partner or professional colleagues. Also, fear of the loss of the power of the physical body.

Primary strengths:

The ability and stamina to survive financially and physically on one’s own and to defend and protect oneself; the “fight or flight” instinct; the ability to take risks; the resilience to recover from loss whether of family members, partners, property, occupation, or finances; the power to rebel and reestablish a life; and personal and professional decision-making ability and talent.

Sacred truth:

The sacred truth inherent in the second chakra is HONOUR ONE ANOTHER.

Activities to nurture second chakra:

Allow yourself to express your emotions in the moment that you feel them.

Take pleasure in your sexuality – how often do you have sex and how would you evaluate the experience? Do you surrender to your feelings or just go through the motions?

Relaxing activities – watching movies, massages, body pampering. How often do you do these activities, what role do they play in your life and how important do you evaluate them?

Participate in family gatherings. Create new events for your family and friends to enjoy together if they don’t already exist.

THE THIRD CHAKRA: PERSONAL POWER

Location:

The solar plexus.

Energy connection to the physical body:

Stomach, pancreas, adrenals, upper intestines, gallbladder, liver and the middle spine, located behind the solar plexus.

Energy connection to the emotional / mental body:

The third chakra, often called the solar plexus is our personal power center, the magnetic core of the personality and ego. The illnesses that originate here are activated by issues related to self-responsibility, self-esteem, fear of rejection, and an over sensitivity to criticism.

Symbolic / perceptual connection:

The third chakra mediates between the primarily external (which is characteristic of the first and second charkas) and the internalization of consciousness. The first chakra has an external center of gravity and is always located within a group mind. The second chakra, too, has an external gravitational center but focuses on relationships and their effects on us. In the third chakra, however, the gravitational center is partly internalized as our focus shifts from how we relate to people around us to how we relate to and understand ourselves.

Primary fears:

Fears of rejection, criticism, looking foolish and failing to meet one’s responsibilities; all fears related to physical appearance, such as fear of obesity, baldness, or aging; fears that others will discover our secrets.

Primary strengths:

Self-esteem, self-respect, and self-discipline; ambition, the ability to generate action, and the ability to handle a crisis; the courage to take risks; generosity, ethics and strength of character.

Sacred truth:

The sacred truth of the third chakra is HONOUR ONESELF.

Activities to nurture third chakra:

List the number of things that you have taken from thought formation to materializing in your life.

Honestly evaluate if you always accomplish what you set out to do? If you do not, are you aware of how that affects your psyche? – Do you beat yourself up by saying “well, I’m going to do this or I’m going to do that”? This is procrastination; - how often do you procrastinate? Realize the effect that has on the body because you are putting that thought out there and not allowing it to materialize for whatever reason. Evaluate how often do you do this to yourself.

THE FOURTH CHAKRA: EMOTIONAL POWER

Location:

Centre of the chest.

Energy connection to the physical body:

Heart and circulatory system, ribs, breasts, thymus gland, lungs, shoulders, arms, hands, diaphragm.

Energy connection to the emotional / mental body:

This chakra resonates to our emotional perceptions, which determine the quality of our lives far more than our mental perceptions. As children we react to our circumstances with a range of emotions; love, compassion, confidence, hope, despair, hate, envy and fear. As adults we are challenged to generate within ourselves an emotional climate and steadiness from which to act consciously and with compassion. This chakra, more than any other chakra, represents our capacity to “let go and let God”.

Primary fears:

Fears of loneliness, commitment and “following one’s heart”, fear of inability to protect oneself emotionally, fear of emotional weakness and betrayal. Loss of fourth chakra energy can give rise to jealousy, bitterness, anger, hatred and an inability to forgive others as well as oneself.

Primary strengths:

Love, forgiveness, compassion, dedication, inspiration, hope, trust, and the ability to heal oneself and others.

Sacred truth:

The fourth chakra is the power center of the human energy system because LOVE IS THE DIVINE POWER.

Activities to nurture fourth chakra:

The very best thing is to exercise your ability to show how much you love yourself.

Ask questions of yourself such as: Am I completely satisfied with my relationships; job; living situation?

List the things in your life that you are satisfied with - and if not why not? What prevents you from accomplishing that desired level of satisfaction?

Location:

The throat.

Energy connection to the physical body:

Throat, thyroid, trachea, esophagus, parathyroid, hypothalamus, neck vertebrae, mouth, jaw and teeth.

Energy connection to the emotional / mental body:

The fifth chakra resonates to the numerous emotional and mental struggles involved in learning the nature of the power of choice. This includes choosing when and how to use our voice to communicate externally what we feel internally. All illness has a connection to the fifth chakra, because choice is involved in every detail of our lives and therefore in every illness.

Primary fears:

Fears related to our will power exist within each chakra, appropriate to that chakra. We fear no authority or power of choice within our own lives, first within our tribes, then within our personal and professional relationships. And then we fear having no authority with ourselves, being out of control when it comes to our response to substances, to money, to power, to another person’s emotional control over our well being. Finally, we fear the will of God. The notion of releasing our power of choice to a Divine force remains the greatest struggle for the individual seeking to become conscious.

Primary strengths:

Faith, self-knowledge, and personal authority; the capacity to make decisions knowing that no matter what decision we make, we can keep our word to ourselves and to others.

Sacred truth:

The fifth chakra is the center of choice and consequence, of spiritual karma. Every choice we make, every thought and feeling we have and communicate, is an act of power that has biological, environmental, social, personal, and global consequences. We are everywhere our thoughts are and thus our personal responsibility includes our energy contributions. What choices would we make if we could actually see their energy consequences? We can approach this kind of foresight only by abiding by the sacred truth - SURRENDER PERSONAL WILL TO DIVINE WILL.

Activities to nurture fifth chakra:

Communicate how you feel about situations and events.

Evaluate how often you feel that you cannot honestly say what you are feeling. i.e. you feel you are in situations where you are not expressing yourself fully or find yourself saying things that the listener(s) wants to hear rather than what you really feel. This is different than not expressing yourself at all and stifling your full expression.

Exercise your creativity in any and every way you can.

THE SIXTH CHAKRA: THE POWER OF THE MIND

Location:

Centre of the forehead.

Energy connection to the physical body:

The brain and the neurological system, pituitary and pineal glands, as well as the eyes, ears and nose.

Energy connection to the emotional / mental body:

The sixth chakra links us to our mental body, our intelligence and psychological characteristics. Our psychological characteristics are a combination of what we know and what we believe to be true, a unique combination of the facts, fears, personal experiences, and memories that are active continually within our mental energy body.

Primary fears:

An unwillingness to look within and excavate one’s fears; fear of truth when one’s reason is clouded; fear of sound and realistic judgment; fear of relying on external counsel, of discipline; fear of one’s shadow side and its attributes.

Primary strengths:

Intellectual abilities and skills, evaluation of conscious and unconscious insights; receiving inspiration; generating great acts of creativity and intuitive reasoning – emotional intelligence.

Sacred truth:

The sacred truth of the sixth chakra is SEEK ONLY THE TRUTH.

Activities to nurture sixth chakra:

Pay attention to clairvoyant messages you receive.

These can come in many forms such as symbolic messages you receive in dreams. They can come via other people, for example if you hear the same thing from different people there is a message there for you to pay attention to what they are saying.

Also listen to messages you receive for other people. When you receive messages for others it is important to share those spontaneous feelings with them.

THE SEVENTH CHAKRA: OUR SPIRITUAL CONNECTOR

Location:

Top of the head.

Energy connection to the physical body:

The seventh chakra is the entry point for the human life-force, which pours endlessly into the human energy system from the greater universe, from God or the Tao. This force nourishes the body, the mind, and the spirit. It distributes itself throughout the physical body and the lower six charkas, connecting the entire physical body to the seventh chakra. The energy from the seventh chakra influences that of the major body systems: the central nervous system, the muscular system, and the skin.

Energy connection to the emotional / mental body:

The seventh chakra contains thoughts, transcendent ideas, and mystical connections.

Primary fears:

Fears relating to spiritual issues such as the “dark night of the soul”, fears of spiritual abandonment, loss of identity, and loss of connection with life and people around us.

Primary strengths:

Faith in the presence of the Divine, and in all that faith represents within one’s life – such as inner guidance, insight into healing, and a quality of trust that eclipses ordinary human fears, devotion.

Sacred truth:

The seventh chakra energy motivates us to seek an intimate connection to the divine in everything we do. This spiritual desire for connection is significantly different from the wish for connection to a religion. Religion, first of all, is a group experience whose main purpose is to protect the group, primarily from physical threats: disease, poverty, death, social crisis, and even war. Religion is rooted in the first chakra energies. Spirituality, on the other hand, is an individual experience directed toward releasing fears of the physical world and pursuing a relationship to the Divine. The sacred truth of this chakra is LIVE IN THE PRESENT MOMENT.

Activities to nurture seventh chakra:

Strengthen your spiritual connectedness through meditation and other activities that quiet the mind and allow you to listen to your soul. Attend spiritual gatherings that help allow your connectedness of like mind. “Listen” to the power of your highest self to give the guidance you may require.

CHAKRA TESTING

To test the Chakras for their degree of openness and alignment, I have found a pendulum to be most effective, however, it does take practice to achieve a good level of accuracy with this method.

The pendulum should be held over each of the seven intake areas and allowed to rotate. Set your intention that an open chakra will rotate in a clockwise direction. Levels of analyzing rotations are as follows:

Clockwise in a large circumference indicates an open chakra.

No rotation indicates a closed chakra.

Counter-clockwise indicates a chakra that is drawing in negative energy.

It is important to set your intention to a “generalized” level of assessment, as chakras can change from one minute to the next and it serves no purpose to test for the immediate condition.

More information can be gathered from both a biological and an emotional level of your subject using the same “intention” method.

As you work with your pendulum through the chakras, hold the thought that “I am testing for biological health”. The degree of the pendulum swing will indicate the biological health of each chakra and its connected body parts (listed in the explanations). A wide, vigorous swing indicating good health, and a small or non-existent swing indicating the opposite, and a counter swing would indicate a strong pull of negative energy into that particular area.

Hold the thought that “I am testing for emotional health” as you work through the chakras a second time. Assess the reaction of the pendulum in relation to the subject’s emotional state. Check with the explanations of the different chakras and explore the possible reasons for a poorly functioning chakra with your subject.

By cross-referencing the information you gather from both the energy body and the chakras, you can gain further insights and validation. For example, an energy block detected in the liver along with a non-functioning third chakra (solar plexus) is a strong indication of negative energy in that area. The additional chakra testing can help define if the problem is of a physiological or emotional nature.

CHAKRA QUESTIONNAIRE

Directions: Answering each question honestly, mark N for Never, S for Sometimes, O for Often and A for Always. Mark P for Poor, F for Fair, G for Good and E for Excellent.

Score 1 point for answers in column one, 2 points for column two, 3 points for column three, and 4 points for column four.

Add up the points for each chakra (possible range from 6 to 24).

More interesting than the actual totals is the pattern shown when comparing all seven results. Are they all in the same range or do they swing wildly all over the board?