Understanding The Power Of The Chakras

What are the chakras?

Chakras refer to various energy centers in your body that correspond to specific nerve bundles and internal organs. The seven major chakras run from the base of your spine to the top of your head.

The word “chakra” translates to wheel or disk, and when referring to the chakras they are a wheel of spinning energy each corresponding to certain nerve bundles and major organs. To function at their best, your chakras need to stay open, or balanced. You may experience physical or emotional symptoms related to a particular chakra if they get blocked.

Above are the 7 main chakras from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. Below we gain more understanding as to what they each symbolize, where they are located and how to identify if a chakra is blocked.

Root / Muladhara Chakra •Element: Earth • Color: Red • Sound: Lam

What it is: The Muladhara chakra is found on the pelvic floor. It is our tap root and keeps us grounded into embodied reality, physically strong and secure. This chakra governs your family ties and feelings of survival, belonging, and guardedness. Your earliest memories are stored in the muladhara chakra, including whether or not your basic needs were met.

The root chakra holds our instinctual urges around food, sleep, sex, and survival. It is also the realm of our avoidances and fears.

When it’s blocked: When this chakra is blocked or out of balance, you can become needy, have low self-esteem, or have self-destructive behaviours. When Muladhara is in balance, you feel strong and confident; you can stand up on your own two feet and take care of yourself.

Sacral / Svadhisthana Chakra •Element: Water • Color: Orange • Sound: Yam

What it is: This chakra is held in our sacrum. It corresponds with your reproductive and sexual organs and represents fluidity, creativity, and fertility. You can take a literal interpretation of this, or associate this chakra with whether or not you feel deserving of a pleasurable, abundant, creative life.

When it’s blocked: When this chakra is out of balance, you can feel emotionally unstable, guilty, or hard on yourself. When Svadhisthana is in balance, you feel creative, positive, and receptive to change—like the ocean and its tides, you’re in the flow.

Navel / Manipura Chakra • Element: Fire • Color: Yellow • Sound: Ram

What is it: Located at the navel, this energy center, one of the chakras, is associated with the digestive system, the element of fire, and individual power and purpose. You’ve heard the expression “firing on all cylinders.” Think of this chakra as your body’s energy powerhouse.

When it’s blocked: When the Manipura is in balance, you feel alive and have the self-esteem and confidence to take action and be productive. When it’s blocked, you lack courage, have low self-esteem, and feel stagnant and inert. By working on this chakra, you can awaken your true personal inner power and work through your fear of taking risks.

Heart / Anahata Chakra Element: Air • Color: Green • Sound: Yam

What is it? The heart chakra is in the center of your chest. According to yoga tradition, it is the very “seat of the soul.” Associated with the lungs and the element of air, we can imagine the heart chakra as the meeting ground for the vast spectrum of our human emotional experience. The heart chakra has the capacity to radiate the highest aspects of the human being: compassion, unconditional love and total faith in the Divine. But it also has the capacity to radiate our deepest feelings of insecurity, disappointment, loneliness and despair.

When it’s blocked: As with the other chakras, blocked energy here can manifest in physical and emotional issues. When the heart chakra is blocked, you become possessive and codependent and may form dysfunctional relationships. You may also stay isolated for fear of rejection. When you stimulate the Anahata chakra, you can heal past wounds by reopening your heart, learning to love unconditionally, and forming healthy relationships.

Throat / Vishuddha Chakra• Element: Ether • Color: Blue • Sound: Ham

What is it? Vishuddha is the energetic home of speech and hearing, and the endocrine glands that control metabolism. On a spiritual level, this chakra is all about expanding our conversation with the Divine.

When it’s blocked: When this chakra is blocked, you may feel like you can’t find your voice or your truth. You may also be overly talkative and not listen to others. When this chakra is open and stimulated, your voice moves through space to help you communicate your emotions in healthy ways. You also become better at listening to others and honouring their personal truths without judgment.

Third-Eye / Ajna chakra • Element: Light • Color: Indigo • Sound: OM

What is it? This chakra is located at eyebrow level midbrain and is associated with your intuition or sixth sense. It governs how the rest of the chakras function. It is the meeting point between two important energetic streams in the body, the idea and pingala nadis, and the place where the mind and the body converge.

When it’s blocked: When Ajna chakra is functioning well, you have insight, and you trust your inner wisdom to face life’s challenges and choices. Physically, it is connected to the pituitary gland, growth, and development. When this chakra is blocked, you feel close-minded, too attached to logic, untrusting, and cynical. Working on the sixth chakra opens your mind to the bigger picture and different perspectives, and it helps you receive wisdom that cannot be seen or heard by ordinary senses.

Crown / Sahasrara Chakra • Element: Cosmic Energy • Color: Violet or White • Sound: OM

What is it? The seventh of the chakras, the crown chakra, connects to beauty itself and the spiritual realm. It helps you to understand who you are beyond your physical self—that you are a spiritual being having a human experience. This chakra links us to everything that is beyond our ego. It is everything that lies beyond our linear intellect and personal needs, preferences and emotional experiences. It is the gateway and source point into enlightenment. The crown chakra is not located in the body but actually hovers above the crown of the head.

When it’s blocked: When the crown chakra is closed, you think happiness can only come from the outside, and you suffer. Working on this chakra helps you to feel free in any situation.