What is Chakra Balancing and How to Incorporate it into Your Spiritual Practice [Episode #788]

 

This week’s topic is: What is Chakra Balancing and How to Incorporate it into Your Spiritual Practice

The idea of chakras comes from the east, comes from Vedic and yogic philosophy. I first started writing about this in my third book, The Beauty Detox Power back in 2015 because this is when I was starting to realize this interconnectivity in our wholeness, different aspects of our being between the physical and the spiritual. So, we know that we have this physical body, this structure of bones and skin and organs, and then we have this energy inside of us, which Paramahansa Yogananda calls the true self. And what the yogis have taught us is that these chakras or these primary energy points, there are seven if you count the crown chakra, which is at the top of the head, all reside along the spine.

So if we widen and expand our ideas to incorporate the physical with the spiritual, we can greatly benefit as there are ways to understand these different levels of energy, these aspects, which will allow us to best take care of ourselves, to nurture our own energy, back to balance. There are things that we can do from a food perspective, from a practice perspective, from an emotional perspective, because these energy centers span the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies. In fact, physically, these chakras all correspond to different endocrine glands as well. So there is a part of this that’s related to our hormones, these delicate messenger chemicals, so to speak, that create this overall harmony in the body. So as time goes on, I really love to share this interconnectivity. Our wellness really isn’t just about how we take care of our physical body and the physical foods that we eat, but it really does involve the spiritual and emotional components as well.

Have you been wondering about this very topic? If you want to know the answer to this question sent in by a Beauty just like you, listen now to find out!

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[Question Answered]

Judy – Arizona

Kimberly I listen to your podcast every week and love it. Thank you! My question is why is it important to keep the Chakras in balance when you’re trying to be more spiritual in your life?

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly Snyder (00:01): Loves welcome back to our Thursday q and a show, or our topic today is, what is chakra balancing and how to incorporate it into your spiritual practice. So this idea of chakras comes from the east, comes from VK and yogic philosophy. I first started writing about this in my third book, The Beauty Detox Power back in 2015 because this is when I was starting to realize this interconnectivity in our wholeness, different aspects of our being between the physical and the spiritual. So, we know that we have this physical body, this structure of bones and skin and organs, and then we have this energy inside of us, which Paramahansa Yogananda calls the true self. And what the yogis have taught us is that these chakras or these primary energy points, there are seven if you count the crown chakra, which is at the top of the head, all reside along the spine.

(01:04):And so if we widen and expand our ideas to incorporate the physical with the spiritual, we can greatly benefit. As we will talk about in our show today, there are ways to understand these different levels of energy, these aspects, which will allow us to best take care of ourselves, to nurture our own energy, back to balance. There are things that we can do from a food perspective, from a practice perspective, from an emotional perspective, because these energy centers span the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies. In fact, physically, these chakras all correspond to different endocrine glands as well. So there is a part of this that’s related to our hormones, these delicate messenger chemicals, so to speak, that create this overall harmony in the body. So as time goes on, I really love to share this interconnectivity. Our wellness really isn’t just about how we take care of our physical body and the physical foods that we eat, but it really does involve the spiritual and emotional components as well.

(02:18):And that’s really how we get the best results. So I’m very excited to dive into our show today. This information has been very helpful to me personally, in my own understanding of myself and understanding some of the root of some deeper issues like chronic constipation and places on the body, areas in the body where ailments and imbalances can take place. There’s much we can do on all levels and all through all the different cornerstones. So I’m very excited for our show today.

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Question around the topic of: What is Chakra Balancing and How to Incorporate it into Your Spiritual Practice: Kimberly I listen to your podcast every week and love it. Thank you! My question is why is it important to keep the Chakras in balance when you’re trying to be more spiritual in your life?

Alright, let’s get into our show today about chakra balancing. And our question comes from Judy, who lives in Arizona. So sending you lots of love out there, Judy, to beautiful Arizona where I’m sure the weather is warming up quite a bit now as we head towards summer. And you ask Kimberly, I love your podcast. I listen to your podcast every week, and I love it. Thank you. My question is about chakras. If my chakras are out of balance, can it affect my spiritual practice and my overall joy? So thank you again, Judy, for this question. And I love highlighting these different aspects of our cornerstones because they really are interrelated. And so there is more science around these concepts and these ideas. You know,

Kimberly Snyder (05:56):Sometimes ancient teachings, it takes a while for modern medicine and modern science to catch up. But we’re starting to see this deluge of, of evidence-based trials and studies on meditation, on Ayurvedic herbs, on energy-based practices like acupuncture and reiki. And so there is even research now coming around these chakras, these energetic centers. So before we delve into that, I just want you to consider for a moment that these energy centers have a physical location, so to speak. So chakra means a wheel. It’s an energy wheel that is spinning. And so for instance, when you feel love, it tend, you tend to feel it literally around your physical heart. And this is your ahata chakra, which is connected to love and care and compassion. And some believe if there is, and this ex extends out into your hands and your arms. So some believe, for instance, if there’s a sort of blockage energetically in this area, it can manifest physically, whether that’s in cardiovascular issues or maybe in you know issues with the breast tissue or just in this general area.

(07:21): So for me, a problem area has always been down in my gut with digestion issues and constipation. When we think about our chakra, which is around our chakra, is around our reproductive organs, and then our Manipura chakra is right around right above our naval. So, both of these kind of overlap around our digestive system, the Manipura really being related to the colon. So the sense of the, I am this confidence that I talk about in the new book, which comes just from existing and being a unique being when that’s blocked in a sense, when it’s not so clear when we’re trying to get outer validation, we suffer from low self-esteem. We feel a bit powerless at our lives at, you know, at a moment in time. What can happen is digestive issues or this stagnation the stuckness that I personally experienced in constipation. So for me, the experience, the intuition of learning about these Eastern philosophies and seeing how it ties in with the physical body is very powerful.

(08:31):We all have to go deeper than the surface to really understand these truths. But along the way, there’s some research that I do want to point out for the discerning mind, which we will link to over in our show notes@myna.com. And this is an interesting paper from 2005 that was published in evidence-based complementary and Alternative Medicine that talks about the non-visible energy of the chakra system, having the ability to transduce subtle energy. So it’s the author’s, right, is a crucial but often missing component in healthcare, understanding how to work with this energy. So energy is at the basis of other complimentary treatments such as acupuncture, for instance, which is offered, I believe in at least 15% of hospitals to this day. Maybe it’s more now, but it’s this idea of freeing up this flow of the will life force, the prana, the chi through the body.

(09:32):And so as we go along, we realize there really is more than what our two physical eyes can see in the world, in energy, and yes, in health and wellbeing. So there’s other studies here that talk about reiki, which I’ve mentioned. I actually have done a lot of reiki. I happen to be a reiki practitioner, level two, which is something I received when I was in Asia, which feels really good to me. And honestly it sometimes just turns on by itself through my hands. And this is about energy transmission. And there’s quite a bit of research now around it, talking about physical touch being impactful on lowering anxiety, depression, and pain and research showing that the scientists don’t really know what’s behind the success of some of these treatments because again, not everything can be measured by the limitations of manmade instruments, but what they did find was that whether it was through the actual practice or simply relaxation, there was an impact on the mind and the body.

(10:42):There was a reduction of the stress biomarkers that could be measured, even though they couldn’t specifically measure exactly what was happening. There’s a lot of unexplained phenomena. By the way, if you want to go down this rabbit hole in quantum physics, if you’re interested in learning about some of these, you know, the Heisenberg principle and some of these really interesting studies where they started to observe electrons and they saw that once the electrons quote unquote knew they were being watched, they started to behave differently, <laugh>. So I fully believe that, you know, mankind, scientists don’t really understand everything, especially when we’re dealing on the surface of the mind. You know, thinking does have limitations as all the great teachers have taught us. And there’s a big part that intuition plays in deeper understanding. So I think one of the things we can do is to be humble, to remain humble, to know that we don’t know everything, and to say, well, it hasn’t been proven in science.

(11:50):So it’s not real. May close us to a lot of potentials and possibilities because a lot of things were proven later or maybe expand, especially in the spiritual realm, of course, extend beyond just measurable, measurable scientific instruments. So it’s important to remain humble and it’s important to remain open. And so there’s other studies around biofield therapy which has been used in chakra balancing, which is limited, but it shows this this field of energy, which again, quantum physics talks about, that we don’t actually stop right at the boundary of our skin energy transfer. So for instance, when you shake someone’s hand, there can be an exchange of electrons. So there’s this field of energy, of interconnectivity, what yoga nazi called the underlying energy matrix of all things. So in this way, energy isn’t just the physical structure, but there is a, there is a layers to it, right?

(12:59): As I mentioned, the physical, the spiritual, the emotional which of which all influence our chakras, these energy centers. So there’s lots of other studies but I want to get more into the chakras now and use our time with that. You can check them out again for the discerning mind, just because it may be of interest to you. But now I want to talk about how we really balance these chakras. So as I mentioned, there are seven major ones. There are hundreds of energy points throughout the body, and they can be called meridians, marma points, as known as I as an Ayurveda. But the major ones, you know, no surprise here are along the central nervous system. They’re along the spine and the brain. And so what’s helpful to remember when we are working to balance them is that they correspond to different colors, which are spectrums of light that are condensed into solidity, and they also correspond to different elements.

(14:07): So for instance, the water element, the earth element. So it’s important that we learn to work with these different energies. And this does expand into endocrine organs, which I’ll be specific about them in a moment. And also there’s so much more to say about this. So if you’re really interested in this topic, please do check out my third book, which is a brilliant purple, which happens to be my favorite color, along with orange, which is called the Beauty Detox Power, which has a lot of food recipes and specific lifestyle practices to balance your chakras. But first, let’s start by going through them. Now we’re gonna start from the bottom and work up. So the first chakra is called Muladhara. So it’s the very base of your spine known as your root. So we think about the root chakra, no surprise here, it’s corresponded. It corresponds with the earth element and the color red.

(15:08):And it has a lot to do with self-preservation. They say a lot of fear can be stored here in the base, in the hips, in the root. And this has a lot to do with our abundance. So we’re all here in our unique paths and our unique journeys, but when we start to really align the root energy and feel grounded and safe, and here showing up right here, right now, we tend to experience more abundance. Now this chakra is associated with the adrenals. So this is fight or flight. This is, you know, how our nervous system reacts or overreacts to the external world. And so some of the ways in which we can work to balance I’ll speak specifically now and then I’ll give some overview points at the end. Some of the things that we can do to really balance our root chakra, if you’re feeling ungrounded, if you’re struggling with any sort of abundance in your life, whether it be financial or an abundance of time or energy or relationship love or whatever it is, we want to bring some more of that grounding earth, that redness.

(16:22):So earth wise, you can wear earth tones, you can wear red, you can work with the earth, you can do more gardening. If you live in a city or you have a little apartment, you can just have some planters, right? Some grow some herbs touching the earth and connecting with our home right here, right now on planet earth is very powerful, I think. And we can also work to this earth element is something that we can start to cultivate by being in nature, meditating, sitting on the earth whenever possible. Also eating foods grown in the earth, especially sweet potatoes and grounding more dense plant foods like seeds and nuts, but you know, carrots, any of these earthy foods grown in the earth helped to bring that earth energy into your body. And then of course, red foods coming into summer, things like cherries and raspberries and red bell peppers and all your favorite red apples and fruits and veggies are going to be very powerful for this for this organ.

(17:37):So of course the hormones that are affected here include adrenaline, non-ad adrenaline, some of the en androgens and the corticosteroids. So now we go to the second chakra. So we go from earth, so now we’re ascending up the spine. And this is a very powerful chakra for self-expression. This is the sac. This is where our creative power resides. This is where our reproductive organs lie. So it corresponds with the testicles and our ovaries. This is water. This is the water element. So progesterone, testosterone, this is what we correspond with the second chakra. And so this is where emotional balance is regulated. And so this balance of water is fluidity. It’s being flexible but strong. We think about how water can move mountains and it can carve into rock over time, but without being rigid, rigidity breaks, right control breaks us, control stresses us out, whether this approach of going with the flow is very powerful in the body.

(18:52):So we can bring some of this natural swaying movement. I’m actually doing it right now, moving our spine, incorporating some more organic movement into our, whether that’s hip rolls or you’re doing some yin stretching, which I do at night, yin yoga and just letting your spine move in in very fluid ways. Also to make sure that you are optimally hydrated. Drinking lots of water, eating lots of juicy fruit, especially as we go into summer, like pineapple and mangoes. The color of this chakra is orange, so especially orange fruit like oranges and cantaloupe and sweet potatoes. Again, play a part here. And then really thinking about the color orange, bringing that perhaps into your wardrobe because it’s related to expression and creativity. I actually just reupholstered my writing chair orange, this beautiful ochre orange that the yogis have always worn as I start to write this new book right here, right now, which I’m so excited about.

(20:03): And then the next chakra as we go up just above your naval, you can feel when you put your hand on your belly, this center of power, this is the manipura, and this is associated with your pancreas, with your spleen. It’s related to insulin and also cortisol, belly fat. This is the center of our personal power. So in the new book, you are more than you think you are. There’s a section where I talk about false confidence and true confidence. And false confidence is this constant trying to grasp for validation from the outside world, from what we look like, all our achievements, which are always moving and shifting, but we come into our personal power, this fiery center, the element is fire. We feel a more steadiness in how we show up in the world and our sense of self-worth because we know we don’t have to do anything to earn our self-worth, but rather we are worthy, we are enough because we all are unique, energetic beings.

We are all equal, but we have a different expression through which this spirit individualized coming through our own beings is showing up in this earth plane right here, right now. Again, we’re a form and we’re the form less. So when we nourish this chakra, which again comes from, I highly recommend checking out some of our practical enlightenment guided meditations over on our website. There’s some really about this confidence to ground into the I am that I am fire elements, adding ginger, cayenne pepper, cumin, some of these great spices that help to promote digestion without getting overly reg. So I personally do not eat onions and garlic because that can bring up my pizza, the fire energy too much. But everybody has a different constitution. But some of these aforementioned spices can do that. They can help to promote your digestion without over stimulating you.

(22:15):So, some other things here, this is the color yellow, like our beautiful Solluna, sun yellow. So we think about yellow apples and spaghetti squash and summer squash and yellow carrots and corn, organic corn, and all the amazing foods that fall into the yellow family as well. So check out those meditations. Check out you know, some of these practices, especially meditating by lighting a candle, bringing fire into your life, of course, in safe ways. But this spark, igniting this passion, this purpose inside of you. This I am that I am, I am worthy. I have something to contribute as we all do. I have something to say, I’m worthy because I’m here, right? This is the real power. And then this inner connection to your energy, your power manifests out through you. That vibration comes through you out into the world and will change your external life.

(23:22):So the fourth chakra is the Anhata chakra. And so natural to put our hands on our heart when we’re feeling that love and care and compassion. And so this is the color green, this is the element of air. We’re starting to get into the more etheric qualities here. So anything green, a glowing green smoothie is amazing for feeling self-love, which of course translates and expands into love for others. This is bringing in a lot of heart-based meditations, which is really the focus of our meditations now and going forward to get into this place of intuitive guidance, out of the heady, overthinking linear space, but dropping more and more into the heart. So a way to balance this chakra as well is if you find yourself really busy in the middle of the day, you’re caught up in all the busyness and the doing and the emails and the zoom calls and everything, just taking some pauses and going down into your heart, really downshifting your energy and just taking a few breaths in and out of your heart.

(24:38):Or even doing one of our meditation practices in the middle of the day, which are around seven minutes. And just breaking that cycle from being so much in our head that it cuts off our intuition and our hearts. Plus again, all these wonderful green foods, the herbs, the green apples, and all the greens in general, this beautiful yin quality gets brought into our bodies, into our beings. And this is also correspond this corresponds with our thymus gland. So then the fifth chakra is the shuda chakra. This is our throat. And so it’s said that our throat, how we express, is very closely connected to the sacral, to the second chakra. And so this has to do with our thyroid, our parathyroid all the different hormones that regulate our metabolism. So we want to use our voice, we want to speak in truth, we want to speak our truth.

(25:38):And so this is a beautiful blueish color. Sort of like you know, we think of between here and the third eye. There’s this, you know, blueish going into purple. So all of this corresponds with blueberries and the blackberries and you know, these dense, antioxidant rich berries like the acai and as it pertains to the throat, really cutting out speech that is unnecessary or doesn’t feel good, right? We want to stand in our power, and part of that is using our power responsibly. So when we want to say something, we have something to say, we say it, but we don’t have to use, you know, we have to fill space with extra words. We don’t have to say unkind things or gossip or speak badly about others. These are just old tendencies and patterns that don’t serve us anymore. They bring down the power of our vibration.

(26:38):So one of the ways to really balance the power and the energy of your speech, others listening to you, is to really speak from your heart, right? This is how it all connects. So let this speech start in the root of your heart and come out through your throat and let our speech always be of love and acceptance and giving others a break and giving ourselves a break. And then we start to move into the sixth chakra, which is the ion chakra. This is right between our physical eyes and a tiny bit higher. This is related to our pituitary gland, our third eye. So this is expansion and being able, being able to see the greater vision beyond what the two physical eyes can see. This is wider perception. So this is where the heart’s intuition can and the vision of the third eye really work together to give us more information. We start to be able to make better decisions, not just from a linear place, but from a place of expansive understanding. And this is related to our just the homeostasis of our entire system in general.

Kimberly Snyder (00:00):
So, some of the ways that we can really work on expanding this vision of the third eye is to meditate on the third eye and put our inner vision there to help activate and open up this spiritual eye. There’s a whole chapter on the spiritual eye, the third eye in the new book. You are more than you think you are. I’ll say it again because it’s packed with teachings that have helped me so much. So, there’s a lot of information there about helping to open this higher vision. I will say here that this is very practical. When we start to see things in a much more expanded way, we tend to have better relationships and attract better relationships. We just show up in a different way. In our families, in our life, we’re more intuitive. Everything just seems to be more harmonious because we’re not so limited.

(00:54):We’re not just in the physical. So, I really recommend these meditations in these practices, which are in the book, and again, also in our free library of meditations on our website. And again, as I mentioned earlier, with our Vishuddha Chaka with the throat, lots of berries are wonderful. The blueberries and you know, the [inaudible] and foods of this nature, berries of this nature are very, very powerful. And, the purple yams that come, you know, the Japanese yams, this beautiful purple color, which is now third eye into crown, the crown chakra. The seventh is the Sahasura, and this is connected to the penal gland. This has to do with melatonin, serotonin, D m T. So, this is really our connection between the, the higher realm, the energetic field, you know, the field that’s spoken about in quantum physics and us. So, we want to remain open.

(01:53):We want to not get so fixed in our concepts and our ideas that we shut ourselves down purple is this color wearing purple. Oh, so all these elements in the upper chakras are space, right? We start to go beyond the elements. So, this spaciousness means we want to create more spaciousness between our thoughts. Not always trying to just jump from one thing to the next, not really listening to people, but just listen, you know, jumping to what we want to say, creating space in the mind. So, we do that of course, just through awareness and through our meditation practices. So, this spaciousness and you know, I love the color purple. So, this is a whole other conversation that we won’t get into today. But crystals, which is basically light in a physical form like amethyst, are ones I like to keep around. They look beautiful. They bring about a lot of awe. They’re millions of years old and they help to remind us of these incredible miracles and energies and life all around us. So

(02:59):There are so many practices that we can incorporate here to balance our chakras overall. We can chant om, which is the energy of spirit of oneness into any of our chakras, that where we feel a particular block, we can see this out loud or we can see this internally, again, wearing the corresponding colors, bringing the corresponding element more into our life. So, for trying to bring in better digestion. For instance, in the Money P chakra, the fire element also corresponds to more cooked food, bringing that fire in, as well as the digestive spices and herbs and so on. So, there’s a lot of information here, again, from our root all the way to our crown. These seven energy points are so powerful to start to understand and delve into. So I hope some of this information resonated. You can check out the show notes if you want to review any of the studies or any of the particular chakras.

(03:57):And also, that third book, which you can get on Amazon or, you know, wherever books are sold. The Beauty Detox Power has a lot more information on the chakras as well, and the practicality of practices and mantras and recipes, food recipes. So, thank you so much for being here with me today. I so appreciate our connection and I look forward to hearing from you on our website. There’s a place where you can write in your questions, and I’m sure many others in the community will benefit because we’re all here learning and growing, and so many of us have the same questions. And I’ll be back here Monday for our next interview podcast. So, till then, take great care, sending you so much love. I’ll also see you on social at underscore Kimberly Snyder, with great love and great gratitude. Namaste.