Hi, I’m Erin, and I’m here today to talk chakras! For the curious, a little background on me can be found here. If you want to get straight to a brief summary of chakras, read on:
The concept of chakras can be traced back to the early (ca. 1500 BCE) Vedic texts of Hinduism, and there are believed to be over 100 in each of our spiritual energy fields. According to modern yogic philosophy, there are 7 chakras located in our body; they are in ascending order: root, sacral, solar plexus, heart, throat, third eye, and crown. Each chakra is thought to support us physically and energetically as we navigate our lives.
It’s worth mentioning that the location of each chakra in our body corresponds to part of the endocrine system, which is pretty cool when you consider how much time spanned between the conceptualization of chakras and the discovery of glands/organs. The endocrine system is responsible for regulating our hormones via a complex system of messaging and feedback loops, and is comprised of (in corresponding order as above): gonads, pancreas, adrenal glands, thymus, thyroid, pituitary, and pineal.
Chakras are thought to be spinning energy discs within the subtle (metaphysical) body, which overlaps with our physical bodies. Much like our breath can link our minds and bodies, or our endocrine system links our organs and brain, the chakras link our energetic self to our physical self.
When we work on our chakras, we are thought to be manipulating our prana, or life force energy. Often times, chakras are said to be “blocked;” when we talk about opening our chakras, we are aiming to allow unrestricted flow of prana within our subtle body, in other words, “aligning our chakras.”
Chakras can be worked on in a number of ways, including meditation, mantra, diet, reiki, and of course yoga! Other modalities for chakra work include tapping, aromatherapy, and color therapy. I will do my best in this series to touch on as many of these approaches as possible for each chakra.
Chakra meditation is really very beginner friendly once you know the basics, and can be a really fun way to add mind-body work to a busy routine. It doesn’t need to be complicated!