Chakras are energy centers that help your body align with health and spirituality.
But how do you tap into your natural energy and help yourself heal?
We’ll make it easy for you with our beginner’s guide to the seven chakras!
In this guide
Inside, you’ll find foods, chakra meditations, correspondences, and techniques to balance and heal your body – from your metaphysical subtle body to your spiritual body to your mental health to your normal human body!
Let’s learn to balance chakras and upgrade our journey of health!
Chakras 101
“Your chakra flow is restricted.”
“It’s time to balance your chakras.”
“Try a chakra meditation; it will be amazing!”
But wait. What’s a chakra and where did that word come from?
The History Of Chakras & Chakra Etymology
While it definitely seems like we all collectively just started saying those metaphysical phrases fairly recently, the concept of healing power, spiritual energy, and chakra energies is older than you might think.
In fact, the first known use of the Sanskrit word “chakra” to explain the concept of vital energy flow was around the 8th century BC. During this time, ancient Buddhist practitioners were working hard to uncover how the cycles of life connected to our overall journey of health and wellbeing, especially when it came to energy and vitality.
The word itself comes from the Indic adaptation of the Greek word κύκλος (pronounced kýklos) which means “wheel of time” or “wheel of dharma”. Indian Buddhists later adopted it againand transformed into the word “cakka” which meant wheel, especially in conversations about karma, reincarnation, emotional energy, and cognitive energy and how they overlapped with kundalini energy.
Finally, Jain Dharma practitioners selected the term “chakra,” which also means wheel, to mean “yogic energy center”.
Over time, many groups of people, including psychologists, modern Indian Yogis, energy healers, psychics, and more, unintentionally came to the same conclusions that there are energy centers aligned within our physical bodies.
So, today, we have come to understand and experiment with the concept of energy centers that affect our overall health and wellbeing – known as “chakras”.
What Is A Chakra?
In the modern sense, a chakra is a center of energy, or mandala, that helps connect you to your higher spirituality while powering your physical body’s systems for optimal healing and long life.
These centers of energy are said to connect your physical body to your spiritual, energetic, subtle body in order to keep them tethered and synced.
It’s believed that when your physical body is synced with your subtle body, you’re able to properly heal and exist.
The Importance Of The Main Chakras in the Body
In your physical body, the main chakras provide subtle energy that helps your organs, mind, and intellect work their best on the physical level.
By learning about and intentionally focusing on these subtle energy vortexes, you can naturally become more in intune with your body, which also helps facilitate healing and healthy habits, which can impact your physical health and emotional healing.
This is why chakra cleansing and care is important to your lifelong journey!
How Many Chakras Are In The Body?
TL;DR: There are seven main chakras in the body.
There are believed to be hundreds of energy centers in the body, but the current consensus is that by focusing on the main seven chakras, you are also able to influence the smaller chakras that are ruled by the main chakra.
The seven energy centers that most people work with today were discovered in the 11th century as part of the tantric practices of Kaula.
These seven vortexes are located along the spinal cord, starting near the tailbone and working up the spine and through the top of the head.
This Western expansion of the traditional kundalini energy line has become very popular and very beneficial, especially when you visualize specifically attributed colors and shapes to your chakra healing work.
Does A Chakra Have A Shape?
Chakras are spherical balls of energy, but as we know, each person sees energy differently.
Over the centuries, they have been described as wheels, circles, discs, lotus flowers, and tornados.
We encourage you to explore your chakras through this guide and discover how they appear to you.
Why Do Chakras Get Blocked?
This sounds scary, but hear us out: Blocked chakras are a natural part of life.
In fact, your energy centers can get blocked by a variety of things, such as negative thoughts, exhaustion, avoidance, disassociation, trauma, or just not giving yourself enough self-care.
These subtle energy wheels connect your thick physical energy to your subtle spiritual energies. They can get blocked by subtle changes that naturally happen in life.
Don’t worry. While chakras get blocked easily, they’re even easier to unblock and open!
How Do You Open Your Chakras?
Opening your chakras and restoring your life energy can be done with a personal practice of simple visualization, deep meditation, chakra-based foods, energy healing, Reiki healing, Reiki meditation, prayer, sound healing, crystal healing, yoga poses, positive affirmations, or chanting.
Anything that moves energy can be used to repair and open the energy of your chakras during a chakra cleansing session.
Which Chakra Should You Open First?
You should open your Root Chakra first before you start working towards your upper chakras.
Traditionally, you should work from the ground up, starting with this first energy center and working up to your Crown Chakra. This helps you match the natural flow of energy.
There are a few reasons you want to start healing your Root Chakra first. It:
- Dictates how secure and safe you feel, which leads to clear thinking as you plan your healing journey.
- Tethers your subtle body to the ground, making it easier for it to connect more fully with your physical body.
- Energy rises upwards, so creating an anchor through your first chakra opens up a great starting place for healing.
How Do You Know If Your Chakras Are Open?
You will feel at peace. That is the easiest answer.
If you feel uneasy, confused, foggy, unhealthy, angry, depressed, anxious, or out of balance, one or more of your chakras may be closed or need healing.
Your first step is to check with your doctor to rule out any larger, non-subtle issues. Then, supplement that with healing your chakras and their connection to your subtle body.
You can discover which chakras are open or closed by:
- Meditating on your body.
- Using a pendulum to see if energy is swirling above your chakra center.
- Checking a guide of symptoms that aligns with chakra healing.
- Holding your hands above each energy center and feeling any differences or lack of sensations in your hands.
- Asking yourself, “What do I need right now?”
- Looking at the foods and experiences you might be craving and attributing those cravings to an energy center.
- Recognizing that if your chakra feels overactive, the one above it might be closed.
Try adding those steps to your daily routine to discover where you should start each day!
Now that you have a solid foundation, let’s learn about each one and what you can do to open, heal, and balance them.
Your Guide To The 7 Chakras For Beginners: Colors, Meanings, Meditations & Foods
Each of the seven chakras has specific colors, energies, sounds, shapes, vibrations, crystals, and foods attributed to them!
The more you work with each attribute, the more open that energy center will be. The more open each energy center is, the better your flow of energy will be through the major chakras.
For example, if you notice that you’ve been feeling shy or as if you’ve lost your voice or charisma, you may focus on visualizing a blue ball of energy at your throat growing in size, sending Reiki energy through that chakra, eating more blueberries, wearing a necklace made of lapis lazuli, and chanting in the note of G.
The goal of healing chakras is to send as much thought and personal energy to that space as possible. Your attention to that area signals to your body that it’s time to heal it.
1. Root Chakra (Muladhara)
What It Looks Like: It is made up of a red sphere of energy.
Where It’s Located: It rests at the base of your tailbone as the first chakra of seven.
What Its Symbol Is: Its symbol is the four-petaled lotus flower with a square and inverted triangle at its center.
What Element It’s Ruled By: Earth
When It’s Balanced: When balanced and open, it ensures that you feel safe, protected, strong, and grounded.
When It’s Unbalanced & Closed: You may experience feelings of uncertainty, frustration, anger, irrational fear, and floatiness.
When It’s Unbalanced & Overactive: You may experience feelings of over-protective tendencies, over-action, reactiveness, volatility, and increased fight-or-flight tendencies.
What Musical Sound Heals It: Its vibration resonates with the musical note C.
What Crystals Balance It: The best crystals to heal the root chakra are black tourmaline or carnelian, though there are many crystals that heal this primary energy center.
Meditation To Unblock The Root Chakra
To unblock this energy center with meditation:
- Sit or lie on the floor.
- Close your eyes, and count backward from 4.
- Visualize your favorite tree. Visualize that you are that tree.
- Feel how deeply your roots dig into the warm earth. Feel cozy, safe, secure, and nurtured.
- Sense that your roots are pulling healthy, red, vital energy up from the earth and into your body.
- Feel the red energy flowing up through your roots, through your legs, and into your lap, settling at the base of your spine.
- Watch the red sphere at the base of your spine fill up with red light and grow until it extends out and around your hips, like a beachball around your waist.
- Count up from 1 to 4, and open your eyes.
How To Balance Your Root Chakra With Foods
Eat red foods, hearty grains, earthy nuts, and root vegetables such as almonds, apples, beets, beef, carrots, cashews, cherries, coffee, dragon fruit, lamb, oats, parsnips, peanuts, peppers, pomegranates, potatoes, plums, quinoa, raspberries, tomatoes, strawberries, sweet potatoes, venison, and walnuts.
Ever wonder why your favorite comfort foods are so comforting? They ground you by balancing your primary energy center.
Try these recipes:
- Dill Roasted Carrots for Wealth and Grounding
- Instant Pot Bone Broth Recipe for Grounding, Healing, and Vitality
- Braised Lamb Shanks Magical Recipe for a Happy Family
- Vegetarian Pot Pie for Beauty, Grounding, and Protection
Remembering which foods help restore your Muladhara is easy; all naturally red foods and root vegetables will help balance your first energy center.
2. Sacral Chakra (Svadhishthana)
What It Looks Like: It is made up of an orange sphere of energy.
Where It’s Located: It nestles in right below your hip line, at the heart of your reproductive organs.
What Its Symbol Is: Its symbol is the six-petaled lotus flower with a crescent moon resting at the bottom of its center.
What Element It’s Ruled By: Water
When It’s Balanced: When balanced and open, you feel certain in your ability to grow and create, will be confident in your positions and sexual orientation within your relationships, feel emotionally and hormonally stable, operate as your most true self, are open to emotional healing, and can maintain a healthy sex life.
When It’s Unbalanced & Closed: You may experience feelings of low self-esteem, unattractiveness, burn-out, low sexual interest and low sex drive, addiction, and guarded emotions.
When It’s Unbalanced & Overactive: You may experience feelings of an overactive sex drive, mood swings, endless guilt, inability to say no, low boundaries, and overwhelming emotions.
What Musical Sound Heals It: Its vibration resonates with the musical note D.
What Crystals Balance It: The best crystal to heal the sacral chakra is amber, though there are many crystals that heal the sacral energy.
Meditation To Unblock The Sacral Chakra
To unblock it with meditation:
- Sit or lie on the floor.
- Close your eyes, and count backward from 6.
- Visualize your favorite tree. Visualize that you are that tree.
- Feel how deeply your roots dig into the warm earth. Feel cozy, safe, secure, and nurtured.
- Sense that your roots are pulling healthy, orange, exciting energy up from the earth and into your body.
- Feel the orange energy flowing up through your roots, through your legs, and into your lap, settling between your hip bones.
- Watch the orange sphere in the center of your pelvic bones fill up with orange light and grow until it extends out and around your hips, like a beachball around your waist.
- Count up from 1 to 6, and open your eyes.
How To Balance Your Sacral Chakra With Foods
Eat orange foods, foods with high water or oil content, and aphrodisiacs, such as apricots, avocado, bananas, butternut squash, carrots, cherries, chocolate, chocolate-covered nuts, coconut, cucumber, fish, mangos, olives, oranges, passion fruit, peaches, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, squash, strawberries, and watermelon.
Try these recipes:
- Savory Pumpkin Soup for Protection and Prosperity
- Luscious Full Moon Golden Milk Recipe
- Strawberry Rhubarb Pie for Romance and Love
- Instant Pot Pumpkin Spice Applesauce
Remembering which foods help restore your sacral chakra is easy; all naturally orange foods and foods with high water or oil content will help balance your sacral energy.
3. Solar Plexus Chakra (Manipura)
What It Looks Like: It is made up of a yellow sphere of energy.
Where It’s Located: It lives right above your belly button, near your diaphragm.
What Its Symbol Is: Its symbol is the ten-petaled lotus flower with an inverted triangle resting in its center.
What Element It’s Ruled By: Fire & Air
When It’s Balanced: When balanced and open, you feel empowered, strong, driven, confident, reasonable, and certain of your personal power.
When It’s Unbalanced & Closed: You may experience feelings of personal insecurity, shame, cowardice, negativity, sluggishness, exhaustion, and unnaturally introverted tendencies.
When It’s Unbalanced & Overactive: You may experience feelings of aggression, violence, rage, an unnaturally hot temper, manipulative tendencies, dangerous overconfidence, and invincibility.
What Musical Sound Heals It: Its vibration resonates with the musical note E.
What Crystals Balance It: The best crystal to heal your solar plexus is citrine, though there are many crystals that heal the solar plexus chakra.
Meditation To Unblock The Solar Plexus Chakra
To unblock the solar plexus with meditation:
- Sit or lie on the floor.
- Close your eyes, and count backward from 10.
- Visualize your favorite tree. Visualize that you are that tree.
- Feel how deeply your roots dig into the warm earth. Feel cozy, safe, secure, and nurtured.
- Sense that your roots are pulling healthy, yellow, fiery energy up from the earth and into your body.
- Feel the yellow energy flowing up through your roots, through your legs, and into your lap, settling above your belly button.
- Watch the yellow sphere in space below your rib cage fill up with yellow light and grow until it extends out and around your waist, like a beachball.
- Count up from 1 to 10, and open your eyes.
How To Balance Your Solar Plexus Chakra With Foods
Eat yellow foods, spicy vegetables, sun-kissed fruits, spices, and fortified dishes, such as bananas, chillis, citrus, garlic, ginger, ghost peppers, habaneros, jalapenos, kimchi, kombucha, lemons, limes, mango, mustard, oolong tea, onions, oranges, peppers, salt, serrano peppers, turmeric, and vinegar.
Try these recipes:
- Moist & Easy Banana Nut Bread Recipe For Good Health, Protection & Growth
- The Best Fire Cider Recipe for Cold and Flu Season
- Focus Pocus Iced Lemonade Magickal Potion
- Lemon + Lavender Ostara Cake Recipe
Remembering which foods help restore this energy center is easy; all naturally yellow foods and foods with spices or sun qualities will help balance your solar plexus energy.
4. Heart Chakra (Anahata)
What It Looks Like: It is made up of a green sphere of energy.
Where It’s Located: It lives in the center of your ribcage, in line with your physical heart.
What Its Symbol Is: Its symbol is the twelve-petaled lotus flower with a six-pointed star resting in its center.
What Element It’s Ruled By: Air
When It’s Balanced: When balanced and open, you feel love, contentment, happiness, joy, caring, compassion, forgiveness, emotional healing, and universal acceptance.
When It’s Unbalanced & Closed: You may experience feelings of loneliness, withdrawal, depression, and unnaturally inverted tendencies.
When It’s Unbalanced & Overactive: You may experience feelings of unnatural reliance on others, clinginess, and overly self-sacrificial.
What Musical Sound Heals It: Its vibration resonates with the musical note F.
What Crystals Balance It: The best crystal to heal the heart space is green aventurine, though there are many crystals that heal the heart chakra.
Meditation To Unblock The Heart Chakra
To unblock the flow of heart energy with meditation:
- Sit or lie on the floor.
- Close your eyes, and count backward from 12.
- Visualize your favorite tree. Visualize that you are that tree.
- Feel how deeply your roots dig into the warm earth. Feel cozy, safe, secure, and nurtured.
- Sense that your roots are pulling healthy, green, soothing energy up from the earth and into your body.
- Feel the green energy flowing up through your roots, through your legs, and into your heartspace.
- Watch the green sphere in space below your rib cage fill up with green and grow until it extends out and around your chest, like a beachball.
- Count up from 1 to 12, and open your eyes.
How To Balance Your Heart Chakra With Foods
Eat green foods, air-inspired foods, and heart-healthy foods, such as avocado, arugula/rocket, black tea, broccoli, cabbage, collard greens, dandelion greens, dark chocolate, green apples, green juice, green tea, greens, kale, mint, mustard greens, peas, red wine, spinach, spirulina, swiss chard, turnip greens, and zucchini.
Try these recipes:
- Best Creamed Spinach Recipe For Love & Wealth
- Money Maker: Spiced Mint Iced Tea Potion Recipe
- Best of the Stress: Iced Earl Grey Lavender Tea Potion Recipe
Remembering which foods help restore your heart energy is easy; all naturally green foods will help balance and lead to a healthy heart chakra.
5. Throat Chakra (Vishuddha)
What It Looks Like: It is made up of a blue sphere of energy.
Where It’s Located: It lives at the base of your neck.
What Its Symbol Is: Its symbol is the sixteen-petaled lotus flower with an inverted triangle filled with a circle resting in its center.
What Element It’s Ruled By: Ether
When It’s Balanced: When this chakra of communication is balanced and open, you feel honest, truthful, open, sincere, helpful, charismatic, tact, punctual, and like your most authentic self.
When It’s Unbalanced & Closed: You may experience feelings of unusual shyness, unexpressive, and unnaturally introverted tendencies.
When It’s Unbalanced & Overactive: You may experience excessive speaking, inability to keep secrets, interruptive talking, accidental lying, and bulldozing.
What Musical Sound Heals It: Its vibration resonates with the musical note G.
What Crystals Balance It: The best crystal to heal the Vishuddha is lapis lazuli, though there are many crystals that heal this 5th chakra.
Meditation To Unblock The Throat Chakra
To unblock your throat energy with meditation:
- Sit or lie on the floor.
- Close your eyes, and count backward from 16.
- Visualize your favorite tree. Visualize that you are that tree.
- Feel how deeply your roots dig into the warm earth. Feel cozy, safe, secure, and nurtured.
- Sense that your roots are pulling healthy, blue, outgoing energy up from the earth and into your body.
- Feel the blue energy flowing up through your roots, through your legs, and into your neck.
- Watch the blue sphere in space below your rib cage fill up with blue and grow until it extends out and around your neck, like a beachball.
- Count up from 1 to 16, and open your eyes.
How To Balance Your Throat Chakra With Foods
Eat naturally blue and purple foods, foods that coat and heal the throat, and fruits that grow closer to the heavens, such as apples, blackberries, blueberries, blue corn, butterfly pea flower, honey, lemon, marshmallow plant, mint, pears, plums, purple grapes, red grapes, soups, teas, and slippery elm.
Try these recipes:
Remembering which foods help restore your throat energy is easy; all naturally blue and purple foods will help balance your 5th chakra.
6. Third-Eye Chakra (Ajna)
What It Looks Like: It is made up of an indigo or purple sphere of energy.
Where It’s Located: It lives in the center of your forehead, about one inch above your eyebrows.
What Its Symbol Is: Its symbol is the two-petaled lotus flower with an inverted triangle resting in its center.
What Element It’s Ruled By: Light
When It’s Balanced: When the brow chakra is balanced and open, you feel insightful, are guided, connected, have an excellent ability to recall memories, can easily plan ahead, and experience the sixth senses – such as extrasensory perception.
When It’s Unbalanced & Closed: You may experience a bad memory, have an inability to visualize, feel unimaginative, and have an inflexible mindset.
When It’s Unbalanced & Overactive: You may experience nightmares, an overactive and scary imagination, obsessions, and headaches.
What Musical Sound Heals It: Its vibration resonates with the musical note A.
What Crystals Balance It: The best crystal to heal the third eye chakra is amethyst, though there are many crystals that heal the brow chakra.
Meditation To Unblock The Third-Eye Chakra
To unblock the third eye with meditation:
- Sit or lie on the floor.
- Close your eyes, and count backward from 3.
- Visualize your favorite tree. Visualize that you are that tree.
- Feel how deeply your roots dig into the warm earth. Feel cozy, safe, secure, and nurtured.
- Sense that your roots are pulling healthy, purple, outgoing energy up from the earth and into your body.
- Feel the purple energy flowing up through your roots, through your legs, and into your neck.
- Watch the purple sphere in space in the center of your forehead fill up with purple and grow until it extends out and around your head, like a beachball.
- Count up from 1 to 3, and open your eyes.
How To Balance Your Third-Eye Chakra With Foods
To balance your sixth chakra, eat naturally purple foods, foods that absorb sunlight such as butterfly pea flower, eggplants, figs, lavender, lavender tea, lemons, limes, plums, purple cabbage, and purple grapes.
Try these recipes:
Remembering which foods help restore your anja is easy; all naturally purple foods will help balance your third eye chakra and increase your extrasensory perception.
7. Crown Chakra (Sahasrara)
What It Looks Like: It is made up of a purple or white sphere of energy.
Where It’s Located: It lives above your head, outside of your body.
What Its Symbol Is: Its symbol is the thousand-petaled lotus flower.
What Element It’s Ruled By: Spirit
When It’s Balanced: When the 7th chakra is balanced and open, you experience spiritual connection, ascendance, divine guidance, divine connection, and improved extrasensory perception.
When It’s Unbalanced & Closed: You may experience skepticism, be unnaturally materialistic, and have a lack of focus.
When It’s Unbalanced & Overactive: You may experience dissociation, confusion, floatiness, and overly superior.
What Musical Sound Heals It: Its vibration resonates with the musical note B.
What Crystals Balance It: The best crystal to heal the crown chakra is clear quartz, though there are many crystals that heal the 7th chakra.
Meditation To Unblock The Crown Chakra
To unblock the crown with meditation:
- Sit or lie on the floor.
- Close your eyes, and count backward from 11.
- Visualize your favorite tree. Visualize that you are that tree.
- Feel how deeply your roots dig into the warm earth. Feel cozy, safe, secure, and nurtured.
- Sense that your roots are pulling healthy, white, outgoing energy up from the earth and into your body.
- Feel the white energy flowing up through your roots, through your legs, and into your neck.
- Watch the white sphere above your head fill up with purple and grow until it extends out and around your body, like an egg.
- Count up from 1 to 11, and open your eyes.
How To Balance Your Crown Chakra With Foods
Eat naturally purple, white, or clear foods, such as butterfly pea flower, eggplants, figs, lavender, lavender tea, lemons, limes, plums, purple cabbage, purple grapes, and water.
Remembering which foods help restore your crown chakra is easy; all naturally purple, white, or clear foods will help balance your 7th chakra and enhance your extrasensory perception.
It’s important to note that chakra health diagnosis and healing does not replace standard healthcare. Chakras focus on subtle changes, not drastic recoveries. Always work to heal your chakras in addition to any health routines you are on.
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