Chakra Healing for Beginners: A Complete Guide – Heart Shaped Sol

Are you ready for a complete guide to chakra healing for beginners? Then you’re in the right place!

Understanding the energy body and chakra system is important. It forms the basis for energy work and energy healing. I’ve been learning about chakras for many years now, on paper and through direct experience. I am here to share everything that I know. You can use this information to understand your own health and well-being, and even life circumstances.

This post is all about chakra healing for beginners. It will explain what chakras are, what chakra healing is, and what energy healing techniques support them.

Chakra Healing for Beginners

What are Chakras?

These days, the term chakra is thrown around a lot in wellness circles. It can sound like a cliché. It conjures certain mysticism and other-worldliness. Or certain pre-conceived notions that may or may not be true. Because of this, some teachers prefer the term “energy centers.”

Either way, the chakras or the energy centers are there, right alongside our bodies. Understanding what they are is foundational to understanding our health, life and energy healing.

Chakra Definition

Chakra is a Sanskrit word meaning “wheel” or “circle.” They refer to whirling energy centers in and around the body. Most mainstream discussions of chakras in the West include seven major chakras inside the human body. But different traditions acknowledge and work with many more.

The teacher Sadhguru, for example, says that there are 114 chakras. Others say that there are 22 chakras, with more than a dozen of them extending outside of our bodies and into other dimensions. Numerous indigenous traditions also acknowledge certain “vibratory centers” along the body, including the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest United States.

A note of caution: each tradition works with the energy centers a little differently. Therefore, just because you understand the seven major chakras, it does not mean that these ideas translate exactly into other traditions.

Energy Bodies and Chakras

Each of us is more than just our bodies. In addition to our physical bodies, we have an unseen body that exists as a separate layer. This is a topic that can get pretty wonky and complicated. Even certain scientists have acknowledged the quantum field of consciousness that are even more real, and lasting, than our physical bodies.

According to Pranic Healing,* one’s energy fields include an inner aura, which overlaps our physical bodies and extend out by about four to five inches. We also have an outer aura that overlaps the physical body and the inner aura and extend out by about two to three feet in length.

There are more layers to the human aura, or the energy field. While that is beyond the scope of this post, you can see the general idea in the picture below.

All living beings need energy—chi, ki or prana—to survive. We get this energy through food, air, water and the sun. Such energy travels through certain pathways, called meridians, to reach different parts of the physical body.

Chakras are centers of energy along the physical body. Depending on the chakra, they can draw in and release energy, distribute them to necessary organs, and store information or memory. Many traditions acknowledge seven such major chakras inside the body. Their names and functions are described next.

Seven Major Chakras of the Body

Root (Basic) Chakra: This energy center is located at the base of the spine, at the tip of the tailbone. It is associated with the color red, and the element of earth. When the root chakra is balanced, one feels stable and “rooted,” financially secure and physically strong. This center energizes the whole physical body, including bones, muscles and internal organs. It is the center for survival, grounding and stability.

Sacral (Navel) Chakra: The Navel Chakra is located below and behind the navel. It is associated with the color orange and the element water. The Sacral’s health has implications for creativity, emotions, sensuality and relationships. This center works with small and large intestines, as well as the adrenal glands.

Solar Plexus Chakra: The third energy center is located slightly below your sternum, in the middle of your upper stomach. It is associated with the color yellow and the element of fire. This is the center of personal power, confidence and ambition, the seat of the ego. It has implications for the stomach, pancreas and liver. It also acts as an “energy clearinghouse” of the body, storing and releasing of energy.

Heart Chakra: The Heart Chakra is located in the center of the chest, right between the breasts. It is associated with the color green and the element of air. The Heart Chakra is the center of love, compassion and empathy. This center works with the heart, lungs, thymus gland and the circulatory system. The heart is the bridge between lower and upper energy centers.

Throat Chakra: The fifth chakra is located toward the top of the throat. It is associated with the color blue and the element of space. The Throat Chakra has implications for self-expression, communication, truth and creativity. This center works with the throat, thyroid glands and the lymphatic system. Imbalance of the Throat Chakra manifests as difficulty speaking up and the ability to be one’s authentic self.

Third Eye (Ajna) Chakra: Also called the Ajna Chakra, this center is located between the eye brows. It is associated with the color indigo and element of pure light. The Third Eye is the center for wisdom, knowing, perception and intuition. It works with the pituitary gland and endocrine glands, and controls the other major chakras.

Crown Chakra: This seventh energy center is located at the top of the head. It is associated with the color violet or white, and the element of thought. The Crown is the center for spirituality, enlightenment, and higher consciousness. It works with the brain and the pineal gland.

Dr. Joe Dispenza says that each of our energy centers are independent beings with their own consciousness. Just like our cells are a part of us but have their own memory, consciousness and volition.

This means that you can talk to them, nurture them, and even thank them for being a part of us. That sure is a different point of view than our unconscious way of being. How much do we hold on to anger, fear and frustration within our bodies? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.

Can You Feel Your Chakras?

Yes! I’m sure that each person might them differently. But for me, I started feeling my chakras through my meditation and energy healing journeys.

I don’t feel all of them actively, all the time. But especially during a deep meditation or an energy healing session, I know they are working because I literally feel them.

It’s usually my heart center that is active. I can feel the turning of the wheel, because there is definitely a direction and it is definitely circular. Maybe about five inches in diameter, I’d say. Often turning to my right.

I also feel little wheels turning on my palms during energy healings. During healings, energy goes and in and out right through them. It can feel like subtle movements or static electricity on my palm.

I’ve also felt the wheel turning in my throat chakra, but just once. This was a big win for me, because I’d been struggling with my self-expression for many years. I’m still working on it, to tell you the truth. When I could feel my throat chakra so active and happy, though, I knew that I’d broken through something.

I’ve also felt my Solar Plexus turn, here and there. For my Crown, I usually feel just a big ball of energy at the top of my head like goosebumps all over and hair standing up. The energy definitely goes up and beyond my body. Meditation, music and drumming activates my Crown Chakra. Speaking with certain people, the right people who are good for me, can also activate this center for me.

What is Chakra Healing?

Just like our physical bodies, our energy bodies experience imbalances reulsting from our physical, mental and emotional experiences. Trauma, for example, can be stored in our energy bodies as well as cellular memory. It can continue to wreak havoc on our well-being until it is finally released.

Chakra healing is a technique in which any energetic congestion, blockages or depletion is addressed through cleansing of the energy center. It is then restored with pure, healthy energy to help balance proper functioning of the chakra.

When all of our chakras are well-balanced and functioning at their best, we are able to enjoy good physical, emotional and spiritual health. This is when we live in harmony with our spirit, community and the world, living our lives at full potential.

What Energy Healing Techniques Help Chakras?

These are just a few ways that you help your chakras.

Sound: As much as we are all energetic beings, we are all susceptible to sound and frequencies. There are sound frequencies that benefit each of the chakras, including solfeggio frequencies, singing bowls and even mantras. Just think, that you can help heal and balance your chakra by repeating a single-syllable word over and over. Or play with your singing bowls, and heal yourself!

Meditation: We can work on our chakras through meditation. I’m about to create a chakra healing meditation with reiki next, which is why I thought I’d cover the basics of chakras, first.

But there are many meditations out there through which you can brighten up each of your beautiful energy centers. As I already mentioned in my previous post, Dr. Joe Dispenza has an amazing series of Blessing of the Energy Centers Meditation, the first of which is available on YouTube.

Yoga: Because you really cannot separate the physical and the energetic, physical movements through yoga also heals chakras. Certain poses benefit certain charkas specifically, such as the tree pose for strengthening your Root Chakra.

Energy Healing: Various energy healing modalities, including reiki and Pranic Healing, work to heal chakras. As mentioned earlier, energy healing practitioners can clean out, replenish and balance chakras. Such intervention can sometimes serve a crucial role in helping you heal, especially where Western medicine cannot.

Is it Dangerous to Work with Chakras?

Mostly no. There can be some side effects of working with energy. You may feel anxious for no particular reason. You may feel uncontrollable vibrations through your body that either you love or hate.

When you notice such effects during or right after you do energy work, first thing to do is to go ground yourself. This means, take your shoes and socks off and go stand directly on earth. Mother Earth is conductive and always helps balance you. Or go move your body, like running or dancing. Moving your body redistributes concentrated energy and releases them.

I’ve had many experiences of this through my journey of learning and healing through energy. But that’s because I’ve been working with energy pretty extensively. Think regular, hourslong meditations, or reiki mastership attunements.

If you’re just trying a chakra meditation at home, or sending positive thoughts to your heart chakra, there is very little chance that your chakra will be negatively affected. Although if you’re a naturally sensitive person, energetically, then you may feel it pretty quick.

But again, any serious and lasting negative effects of chakra work is very rare. If you believe you have a case of this, then I suggest that you find an energy healer to help you balance you.

Try It for Yourself!

I recently heard someone say that it’s only natural to have doubts about energy medicine. Even for energy healing practitioners. “But don’t let that stop you from trying,” she also said. And I completely agree.

There are so many things that exist in the world that we cannot see. Think of electricity. Think how your smart phone downloads a ton of information through the ether. If you’re reading this post, then you’re being pulled to it. Go and try, and see for yourself!

This post was all about chakra healing for beginners. I hope you found this information helpful!

*Miracles Through Pranic Healing, Master Choa Kok Sui, pages 12-13.