The Heart chakra, known in Sanskrit as Anahata is located at your chest and is the centre of the chakra system.
This chakra connects the lower chakras to the higher ones, making it very important in your spiritual healing.
The heart chakra is the forth chakra of seven and is our energy centre, being primarily associated with happiness, love, unconditional love, self-love, forgiveness, compassion, relationships, intimacy, devotion, depression and loneliness.
When Your Heart Chakra is in Balance
When your heart chakra is in balance you will feel compassionate, loving, empathetic, peaceful, accepting, balanced, and self-loving. You will be kind, caring, joyous and outgoing, feeling completely at ease with yourself and the people in your life. You will not judge or be critical, and you will take time in relationships, not rushing into several relationships one after the other or desperately searching for ‘the one’. You have belief that when the time is right the right person will come to you.
When Your Heart Chakra is Out of Balance
When the heart chakra becomes unbalanced, the energy running through your chakra is not flowing freely and this can lead to emotional and physical symptoms. You may feel drained, depleted or stuck in thoughts or behavioural patterns.
The heart chakra is particularly vulnerable to disturbances associated with relationships and love, with many if not all of us having experienced positive and negative experiences on the subject of love and relating to others.
This may be from childhood trauma or from a recent breakup and you may have chosen to close off your chakra to numb your pain and suffering. Or perhaps you have difficulties in your current relationships and have taken the opposite route and opened and extended your heart energy to a demanding partner or parent in need. This can often go to the point of over-extending and draining yourself.
Over time, these defense mechanisms can cause an imbalance in the heart chakra and your other chakras, leading to an overactive, deficient or blocked chakra.
Over-active Heart Chakra
If your heart chakra is over active you will be governed by your emotions; whether it’s happiness, anger, grief, misery, jealousy or greediness. They will come over you and offer you little or no control.You may find that you are quite demanding, possessive, manipulative, over critical, and judgmental of yourself and others. Maybe even co-dependent on your partner with poor boundaries and find that you are overly sacrificing yourself.
People pleasing is another sigh of an over-active heart chakra, showing reliance on other peoples approval and attention and trying to please them at any cost.
Under-active Heart Chakra
When your heart chakra is under-active you may feel antisocial, withdrawn and shy and choose to isolate yourself from others. You may also find you have a fear of intimacy and relationships and have difficulty trusting others. You may find it difficult to let people in, instead choosing to keep yourself at a distance.You may be cold, judgmental, lack empathy, find difficulty in forgiving and feel jealousy and bitterness take a hold of you.
Physical Symptoms of a Heart Chakra Imbalance:
If you have an imbalanced heart chakra you may experience heart palpitations, chest pain, poor circulation, high/low blood pressure, and in more serious cases, heart attack.
How To Heal Your Heart Chakra
Healing your chakras may take some practice, but don’t worry, you’ll get there. Most people have built up a blockage over many years, so chakra balancing will take time. By healing the heart chakra you should experience a boost in energy, positivity, love, compassion, and feel an increased sense of connected-ness to life.
Here are my 6 Tips:
Help Balance Your Heart Chakra
No. 1 Affirmations
An Affirmation is the action or process of affirming something. For many, affirmations are the easiest and most effective way to help balance their chakras as they help to give them emotional support or encouragement.
By telling yourself positive and encouraging words you subconsciously take it all in and actually manifest them into your life. You may not believe them at first, but once you repeat them throughout the day with full commitment, you’ll begin to notice a change in the way you feel.
By repeating an affirmation such as “I fully love and appreciate myself” you can make a world of difference to how you feel and perceive yourself.
Here are a few that you can say to yourself throughout the day, maybe in front of a mirror, during mediation, when you wake up or before you go to bed.The following affirmations for the heart chakra were taken from reiki-for-holistic-health.com/
Love is the answer to everything. I am an infinite being full of Divine Love, which I give freely and openly accept from others!
I freely and easily give and receive love. Totally forgive others and myself for all past errors and judgement.
I am worthy of love.
I am loving to myself and others.
There is an infinite supply of love.
I live in balance with others.
No. 2 Crystal Therapy
The heart chakra is predominantly associated with the colours green and pink, so choosing healing stones/crystals including Rose Quartz, Jade, Green Aventurine, Emerald and Green Tourmaline are an excellent starting point. You can wear them as jewellery (available as bracelets, necklaces, rings etc.) or you can use the stones/crystals themselves. I carry my rose quartz around in my pocket most days!
These healing stones will help to support the healing and balancing of the heart chakra and aid realignment.
Rose quartz — Pink — Semi-precious — Used to open and heal as well as helping to calm emotions, dissipate negativity, and promote peace.
Jade — Green to white — Semi-precious —Jade promotes emotional and physical healing of the heart’s troubles and helps to balance.
Green tourmaline — Semi-precious — Considered a stone of rejuvenation, tourmaline helps to promote emotional stability and healing as well as helping to open and stimulate the chakra.
Green aventurine — Semi-precious — This is a stone of vitality helping to increase focus and soothe emotions.
No. 3 Colour Therapy
The heart chakra is associated with the colour green, so wearing green, having green fabrics, paintings, or bedding; lighting green candles or picturing green in the centre of your chest (particularly during meditation) can help bring balance to your heart chakra.
Also think Green Leafy vegetables like spinach, kale, dandelion greens, chard; plus veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, and squash, and spices like basil, sage, thyme, cilantro, parsley, basil and marjoram.
Pretty much any Green coloured herb, spice or food will be a good choice!
No. 4 Healing with Nature
Because the colour green is the colour associated with the Heart Chakra, it only makes sense to emerge yourself in the greenness of nature! It’s all around us in nature, from the trees and flowers to the grass.
Going out walking, cycling, running or simply just laying in the grass will allow the heart chakra to begin healing and come into balance.
The element associated with the Heart chakra is air, so sitting outside and feeling the wind upon your skin, taking deep breaths and/or exercising outside can be very healing for the heart chakra. Outdoor yoga (particularly hatha yoga), outdoor meditation, walking or jogging, or anything that allows free movement of air around the body will be beneficial.
No. 5 Aromatherapy/Essential Oils for the Heart Chakra
Essential oils including sandalwood, rose, cedarwood , Angelica, Marjoram, Hyssop, Lavendar, Neroli, Melissa, Rose, Chamomile, Ylang ylang, Jasmine, Rosemary, and Frankincense are all beautiful and delicious smelling oils to help bring your heart chakra into balance.
Simply burn or diffuse in an oil burner (or diffuser!) around the room, add to your bath water or sprinkle on a scarf or pillow. You can even add them to shampoos or your moisturisers (though make sure you’re only using 1-2 drops per 5ml as essential oils are pretty potent!
No. 6 Reconnect With Yourself and Others
Reconnecting with your body and giving it some self-love is a sure-fire way to nuzzle open that heart chakra and allow the energies to flow.
Indulge in regular massages where you are connecting to others and experiencing physical touch. Whether it’s full body massage, shoulder and neck or just a foot massage – anything that helps you to feel a connection to your body.
Another way to help you reconnect with yourself and others is to ensure you’re giving and receiving love from family and friends through lots of touch – hugging, holding hands, a gentle squeeze of them arm – however you like – just ensure you’re genuinely connecting with another person.
Self-discovery is another way to reconnect with yourself. What do you love? What do you want to do but never dared? What do you miss doing? Grab a pen and paper, write it out and find out what it is you are really wanting out of this precious life you have. Once you have discovered it, write it down again, focus on it, dream about it and manifest it into your life!
Opening the heart chakra after a period of personal struggle or grief is not easy, so please be patient and kind to yourself during the process.
The Heart chakra is deeply connected with the idea that we must first love and accept ourselves before we can truly love others, so learning to embrace and love yourself—for better or for worse—is a great place to begin.
And remember that letting go of what you don’t need to carry allows you to make room for new and better life opportunities.
Catch up on my previous blogs on Root, Sacral and Solar Plexus Chakras, and keep an eye our for my upcoming blogs on the next 3 Chakras!
The 7 Chakras include:
- The Root Chakra
- The Sacral Chakra
- The Solar Plexus Chakra
- The Heart Chakra
- The Throat Chakra
- The Third Eye Chakra
- The Crown Chakra
Love Emily
xx
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*I should note, I am not a medical doctor, dietitian, nor certified nutritionist and I do not hold a degree in medicine, dietetics, or nutrition.The content from this blog is not intended to diagnose or treat any diseases, but instead is intended to provide information and knowledge from my own personal experience and what I believe. It is not a substitute for real medical advice.My studies in nutrition have given me a lot of fantastic information, however I make no claims to any specialised medical training, nor do I dispense medical advice or prescriptions
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Chakra
Emily Girling
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