Chakras notes

hi this video is about chakras chakras are something that my students get usually pretty excited about they know usually a little bit about the chakras before they take a yoga class and so it's always interesting to have a bigger discussion about them in class and to kind of experience a little bit more about the chakras so if you're new to the idea of chakras chakras are in yoga seven energy bodies energy pools within your physical body so they are considered the center of your spiritual power they exist in the same place in everyone and they're basically located from the root of your body in a chain all the way up towards the crown of your head and they are represented by different colors most of you have probably seen some sort of representation pop culture's really embrace the idea of chakras so you'll see them on yoga mats on t-shirts people have chakra tattoos so it's a pretty a pretty common image nowadays but they are really important to understanding your energy in your body so one of the things that we try to connect with when we practice yoga through the poses and through our breath our pranayama is the idea that we all have energy moving through our body and that energy when moving freely makes us feel healthy makes us feel at ease makes us feel energetic when that energy is stagnant or clogged in some way we start to feel it in different ways it manifests in different ways and some of those ways can be physical and some of those ways can be emotional so if you are having problems dealing with a certain issue in your life or if you're having physical pain or nagging problems you may think about your chakras and try to identify how the chakras are associated with that pain or that emotional upheaval that you have in your life and once you're familiar with chakras and once you can identify them and learn to feel them and you own body it becomes a little bit easier to understand more about your energy on the days that you're feeling a little low or on the days when you're feeling really energetic and you want to kind of keep that feeling going connecting to your chakras is an important thing to do you can see on this slide the representations of the chakras they're associated with a color each of them and they're all associated with a part of the body and that part of the body is important when understanding what you're feeling and and how to connect the chakra to that part of the body so we always start when we think about our chakras we start at the bottom we start at the root chakra and it's a nice sort of deep brick red color and it's wrote it's located in your body right at the root of your body right as if you're sitting in meditation or if you're sitting in a chair sitting on the floor the root chakra is a part of your body that's making connection with the earth it's your root it's your foundation the next one is the sacral chakra the sacral chakra is located right below your belly button and so it's usually associated with like an orange color it can be slightly different depending on what you're looking at the sacral chakra is connected to for both men and women reproductive organs a real deep emotional Center is is located here in your sacral chakra and the next one is the solar plexus chakra always represented by a bright yellow color and this is really right where your diaphragm is it's the center of your power it's for most people the strongest part of their body it's the center of your trunk it's where the important organs are located and it's really strong part of your body it's associated with you sort of using your personal power and standing up for yourself and really being a strong person the next one up is heart chakra this one is associated with the color green usually so some people are confused when they see the heart chakra being represented by a green color because we usually associate hearts with red but in terms of energy that is associated with our chakras green and the heart chakra is a really energetic color so the green representation has to do with the fact that your heart chakra is where you get a lot of your emotional energy the next chakra is your throat chakra located of course at your throat represented by a nice periwinkle color the next one is your third eye chakra located right between your eyebrows of course and then the last one is the crown chakra which is really not even at the crown of the head it really sort of floats above the crown of the head and it's always represented by a vibrant purple color representing the crown chakra and this is really the highest level of emotional intelligence that you can achieve so these chakras are located the same place for every person and when you do yoga or meditation or pranayama or other sorts of contemplative exercises you're activating the energy that exists in these centers when we discussed pranayama we saw the different nahdi's or the channels through which your energy flows in the body and all of those nahdi's really connect intersect at different chakras the chakras are really kind of little mini centers for energy and all of the channels of energy go in and out through those chakras so you can see here what each of the chakras is responsible for and a lot of them make sense depending on what part of the body they're associated with you can see sort of what they are responsible for so again we start at the root chakra and the root chakra is really having to do with issues of basic trust so again if you think about your root as your foundation and we're going to look at another is another slide in a moment that will maybe make this more clear but your foundation is your trust your stability in life and when you don't have that none of the other chakras really matter you really have to start at the bottom make sure that you have a strong foundation before you can move through the other chakras and really work on different issues so the sacral chakra is next and like I mentioned before the sacral chakra is associated with the reproductive organs in both men and women and so therefore it makes sense that their sacral chakra is responsible for your sexuality and also your creativity the next one is solar plexus and this one is your wisdom and your power your heart chakra of course is associated with your ability to love and in this case something that a lot of people tend to overlook is that when we discuss the heart chakra and opening that heart chakra and making sure the energies flowing through that we really are talking about love for yourself not just love for other people so the heart chakra it's important to remember that when you think about love think about how much you love yourself and whether or not you're doing a good job of that before you think about loving other people the throat chakra is responsible for communication I have had yoga teachers in the past who have always said that before a big events before they teach a class or before they give a speech I know I've done this myself I've gone to conferences and I've spoken to large groups of people on topics of yoga and mindfulness and I always try to do some yoga and meditation around my throat chakra to make sure that I'm comfortable with communication and that I'm able to get my message across it's also something that comes into play if you're having an issue with a partner or a friend or a family member if you're having trouble having a difficult conversation your throat chakra might be blocked the energy around your throat chakra might be stagnant and you could do some things in order to open up that energy and it may make that conversation and happen a little bit easier the next one up is the third eye chakra and this is responsible for awareness there are quite a lot of times that we will activate our third eye chakra or there are chance that you can do there are poses that you can do that really awaken your your third eye chakra and your awareness and then the last one the crown chakra is responsible for your spirituality and this is really responsible for a feeling of bliss when you're doing chakra work you always start at the bottom and move up so you always think about doing things in order to activate and open up the energy pools at the bottom and then move upward and you can see that the bottom one is really related to physical things and as you move up through the chakras it's much more spiritual much much less tangible so those are things that you really understand in life that when you have security and safety you understand that then you can sort of broaden your mom mind and become more enlightened and that's true with the chakras as well a Maslow came up with this hierarchy of needs years ago and those of you probably have studied this in psychology class or sociology class and this is really a way of connecting the chakras to Maslow's pyramid of needs and so you can see like we said at the bottom the largest part of the the pyramid the most stable part is the root chakra because as according to Maslow also without physical stability without safety without food and water without your health you're not able to develop emotionally spiritually intellectually you really need to have that firm physical safety shelter this is it true with children as well if you're going into social work or if you're planning on becoming a teacher you'll study this pyramid as well and understand that when you're working with children we know now that children who come from backgrounds that are filled with violence or homelessness or hunger any sort of feeling of insecurity affects the development of those children deeply because we know that without that strong foundation a child's intellectual development is halted would unless you have a strong root of strong foundation you're not able to develop intellectually and emotionally because quite frankly your body is focused on more important things your body's focused on staying alive and only when you have that taken care of only when you are secure in your safety and you're not hungry and you know that you're safe only then can you move up through the pyramid to to more emotional and spiritual matters and you can see each of the chakras here associated with that the next the next level of the pyramid is an expression of healthy sexuality a sense of individual power emotional communication communication can be difficult and we see it in children who come from from terrible backgrounds that their ability to communicate is halted because they just haven't been to develop in a healthy way as you move up through the fifth chakra the feeling of one's voice your throat chakra of course associated with communication and this is true also in Maslow's pyramid here because what we're looking at is this ability to speak for yourself it's not just using your voice in everyday conversation it's using your voice to advocate for yourself and your own needs and possibly for others and then moving up to the sixth chakra you have a state of mental clarity and finally spiritual union at the top of the pyramid so the chakras are associated with physical parts of the body they're associated with different developments that you have as a human being and there's ways to activate the chakras and there's ways to sort of nourish each of the chakras and one of the ways that some people like to do is to activate their chakras or to nourish their chakras think about the different kinds of food that are associated with each of those chakras and you can kind of look at this read it you'll notice that with each of the chakras the color that's associated with the chakra is relates directly to the kind of food that activates it and that's certainly not an accident so the root chakra there are some foods listed there that help and nourish the root chakra and if your root chakra is blocked for whatever reason you will see that there are certain types of ailments that you may suffer from so some of the problems could be with your digestion it could be lower back pain and it could be emotional issues related to money and security so if you're constantly anxious about your budget or worried about money your root chakra is going to be stalled the energy is going to be sort of stagnant there because you have feelings of insecurity in the very foundation of your life the sacral chakra if your sacral chakra is blocked you'll have may have experienced issues of infertility hip pain sexual dysfunction you may have creative blocks because the sacral chakra is not just related to sexuality it's also related to creativity so some of the the foods are listed there that could nourish the sacral chakra next is the solar plexus chakra if your solar plexus chakra is blocked then you'll have also issues with digestion but you may have eating disorders a lack of confidence procrastination again the solar plexus chakra is associated with your personal power and if you tend to procrastinate then you're not feeling confident in your own ability to get things done and so you tend to procrastinate so your solar plexus chakra is responsible for that and next we move up to the heart chakra and of course if your heart chakra is blocked you can assume that you may have some heart issues some lung issues allergies are related to respiration and so you may have issues with that with a blocked heart chakra next is your throat chakra and issues with your throat chakra could be of course difficulty expressing your feelings but in terms of physical manifestations you may have a frequent sore throat you may notice that you have thorough issues of course because your thyroid is located in that area and your third eye chakra problems with emotional disorder so depression may be some poor eyesight may be hormonal imbalances poor intuition and of course there is a food listed there that is not meant to cure any of these things it's just an association that certain foods tend to nourish certain chakras and certain chakras and to be associated with certain physical and emotional ailments and in the crown chakra the best way to nourish your crown chakra is to be out in nature sunshine fresh air clean water all of those things that we know are good for us that immediately elevate our mood those things are really directly related to a healthy and open crown chakra some of the feelings if you're still having issues if you're sort of new to the study of chakra and you're feeling a certain way this this slide lets you kind of know depending on what you're feeling to associate it with whichever chakra may be responsible so if we go down at the bottom of course again with your root chakra if you're feeling balanced if your root chakra is open and balanced and you feel as though you are confident you feel full of energy if it's not open then you have low self esteem you might have low energy same thing with those sacral chakra if you are unbalanced in that area you feel as though you've lost your creativity if you're balanced then you have creativity you constantly feel like you have something to offer you have new things to offer moving up to solar plexus if you're angry and helpless or if you can't finish tasks this is an indication that your personal power is suffering you don't have confidence in your personal power whereas if your solar plexus chakra is open you are organized and you feel as though you can accomplish a lot of things everyone has those days where you just feel like you've gone through everything you needed to do and then some and you have energy to burn those are good days where you can assume that your solar plexus chakra is is open your heart chakra of course you know what it feels like when your heart chakra is blocked but when it's open you feel loved and you are loving and again remember to start with yourself when you're thinking about your heart chakra next we move up to throat chakra and again communication issues if it's open and energy is moving freely then you can express yourself well if it's blocked and stagnant then you have trouble expressing yourself or explaining your feelings moving up now to the next chakra we have third eye chakra if you feel calm and you feel like you can solve problems then your chakra is in good shape if you are having indecisiveness then you may think about doing certain things to open that third eye chakra and then finally the crown chakra if you are at peace then you can assume that you have achieved an open and rejuvenated third eye chakra on the other hand if you're feeling other things loneliness confusion apathy it's usually associated with an unbalanced or blocked crown chakra and all of these things can change on a daily basis not everybody walks around with feeling everything wonderful full of energy totally at peace we all have days where something's off something's not working well and that's why understanding the chakra is helpful in recognizing what do I feel like today what could I do to kind of open up this energy pool and maybe change how I'm feeling so now that we know about our child so next I want you to watch the short video I put together sort of describing some of the yoga poses that are really good for opening up and activating the different chakras I'll see you there