Unlocking the Power of Your Chakras

Simple Practices to Nourish and Align Your Chakra System for Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Well-being - By Margaret Young

Reading time: 3 minutes

Unless you’re a holistic practitioner, whether it be yoga, reiki or something else, or very far along in your holistic journey, you may not be an expert in the chakra system. In fact, you may not know what a chakra is at all. Listen we all have to start somewhere.

And rather than get overwhelmed with learning all seven chakras and figuring out where your imbalances might be, I invite you to think about looking after and maintain your chakra SYSTEM as a whole.

Let’s face it, if you are unfamiliar with working with your chakras, you are unlikely to be waking up in the morning thinking “I really need to sort out my root chakra today” or “my solar plexus needs some attention” but you may find yourself constantly broke even though you earn a good living, or not seeing red flags in people and situations that your friends might see a mile away.

These are subtle signs that your energy may be out of alignment.

The truth is, I’ve yet to meet anyone whose chakra system is perfectly balanced all the time. Chakra balancing is an ongoing process that’s essential for physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. So, let’s start by addressing the system as a whole, using knowledge and wisdom that has the power to benefit your life in a myriad of ways.

Awareness of lifeforce

If chakras are wheels of energy in the body, little processing plants of energy, that energy is Prana, the Sanskrit word for lifeforce, or Chi, which is the word used in Chinese medicine. That person that sucks the life out of you when you are in their company? That is the depletion of your lifeforce.

Nurture and protect it at all costs. The quality of your prana depends on more than just your breath or diet—it’s also influenced by the sensory input you receive. Make sure you’re fostering good quality prana by paying attention to all of your sensory gateways, what you see, hear, taste, touch, think, listen to…

Sound as vibrational energy

The principle of sound healing is based on the idea that the universe, and everything within it, is made of energy, vibrating at different frequencies. Each chakra resonates with a specific frequency, so listening to music or sounds at the right Hertz (Hz) can help balance the corresponding chakra.

On your chosen music or meditation app, try out different Hertz tracks and see what resonates. Don’t necessarily analysis what chakra it corresponds to, but be open to them all.

Sound Baths

Attending or listening to a sound bath offers another sound-based healing method. The vibrational energy from instruments like singing bowls, gongs and bells, travel through your body, helping to clear stagnant energy and retune your chakra system.

You can attend live sessions or find recordings online. A lot of sound bath facilitators will work with the full chakra system in a session so is has an overall balancing effect.

Ayurveda and the Dosha system

Ayurveda, the ancient Indian science of life, offers insights into your body’s unique constitution, or dosha. Understanding whether you are Vata, Pitta, or Kapha dominant can help you identify imbalances and restore harmony in your chakras.

Working with an Ayurvedic practitioner or researching the topic yourself, can help you understand your dosha and how it influences your energy flow. This knowledge can be really helpful for achieving balance across all your chakras.

The Breath

As mentioned earlier, the breath is one important, and actually essential way to bring prana into the body. Without getting into specific breathing techniques just yet, start with awareness of your breath at regular intervals throughout the day. Notice the speed, depth, temperature of the air, sound you might be making. Just observe the ebb and flow. That’s it.

The awareness is the first step towards deepening, cultivating and manipulating the breath, the prana itself, to your own benefit, and with respect to your chakras. For now, just breath. Let this mindfulness become a foundation for future practices that will further support your energetic balance.