Now Go Shine!

We've come to the end of our chakra journey together - for now : )  The series of chakra classes will be taking a break over the summer.  It's time for you to go out and shine your light and go outside to enjoy the abundance of light and warmth!!  I will still be teaching various flow, gentle, yin and possibly some outdoor pop up classes over the next couple of months, so keep checking back either here or on the Facebook page to see my schedule.  

I SPEAK

As we learned last time, the heart chakra is where all our answers to any question we may have lie.  The fifth chakra, or throat chakra is about accessing this information.  It’s the place where we discover what is on the inside, so we can express it out to the outside world.  The throat chakra is in charge of communication, and often when we think about communication, we are focused on the words we are expressing out.  But, a large part of this energy center is being still and silent and listening deeply to weed through the voices and sounds that are inside us to discover which ones are truly ours (our own personal truth) and which ones have been put in there by other people.  The following are a few ways to feed our throat chakra in order to help us find that stillness and allow us to access our inner sounds.         

I Am Divine

“He who knows others is wise, but he who knows himself is enlightened” Lao Tzu 

As mentioned in the last post, our society and culture seems to be based on the concept that someone or something outside of ourselves knows what is best for us.  We rely on our society to tell us how to behave, on our government to tell us what rules we should follow, on our religion to tell us how to be moral, on corporations to tell us what to buy, on our doctors to tell us what medical treatment we should follow, on our friends and family to tell us what path we should take in life, etc.  I’m not proposing that we chuck everything and allow a free for all.  What I’m trying to illustrate is how maybe the decisions we think we are making for ourselves are actually decisions that are based on how we are told we “should” be living.  Have we really taken the time to get to know ourselves, to know who we are and what is best for us?  Or, is it easier to let those things and people outside of us tell us who we are and answer these questions for us?

Listen Up

The next stop on our chakra journey brings us to the throat chakra.  While the heart chakra was a bridge between our earthly connections and our divine world, the throat is a gateway between our inner world and our outer world.  By entering and going through this gate, we enter into “the symbolic world of the mind.  Words, images, and thoughts . . . “ Anodea Judith become most important here for us.  It’s more about intangible things and concepts that may be more difficult for us to grasp, yet can have the biggest impact on the course of our lives.

The Heart Knows

Halfway up our chakra journey, we come to the heart chakra, which is located here at our hearts in the center of our chests.  This energy center is all about love, compassion, forgiveness and joy.  It is our ability to both give and receive love in order to feel a connection to ourselves as well as those around us.  Ultimately, this connection allows us to come to the realization that we are all one.  The Sanskrit term for this energy center is Anahata, which means "unstruck sound."  It refers to that sound that is reserved for only us to hear.  It is our unique vibration, where if we are silent and really take the time to listen to our hearts, we will hear it and hopefully follow its wisdom and guidance.

Light Your Fire

Continuing the journey along our spine, we come to the third chakra.  This energy center is located around the solar plexus area, which is above our stomach and just below our chest.  Also known as the solar plexus chakra, the Sanskrit name for this third chakra is Manipura, which means "lustrous gem"  It is focused largely on the self, and its many aspects (self-esteem, self-worth, self-perception, ego, etc.).   It is where we come to recognize our true power and direct our activities, using this power, towards a higher purpose.

Chakra Khan

I taught a couple of chakra introduction classes today in order to celebrate a few things happening at different studios, but also as a way to promote and kick off my various chakra series that are starting up this week.  I was asked by one student “so . . . . . what is a chakra?”  Valid question when coming to a chakra yoga class, but it made me realize that I have been so immersed in learning about the chakra system over the past few years, that I forgot there was a time when I also had no idea.  Because I had been a yoga student for so many years, I had come across the word before, but didn’t really know what the concept was.  I remember for the first little while all I could think about when I heard the word “Chakra” was “Chaka Khan”  (if you’re also a child of the ‘80’s, you know what I’m talking about!)