Anodea Judith maps the seven chakras from root to crown, naming the psychological blocks at each one: fear, guilt, shame, grief, communication blocks, illusion, attachment. She pairs each block with the gift you get when you face it, from security to spiritual freedom, plus an affirmation for each chakra.
Chapters
When we look at the healthy functioning of a chakra, we can sometimes see that there's a negative energy that is counterproductive to that healthy functioning. Sometimes I call these demons, but they're challenges to the healthy activation of each chakra. But when these challenges are faced, you can harvest the gift of that chakra. In the root chakra, we deal with the challenge that fear presents. Fear may show up as nervousness, anxiety. It may paralyze you from moving forward. It may make you overact and do too much in order to overcome. Thinking, oh, I'm afraid I won't have enough, I'm afraid I won't succeed. Fear can take you into imbalance. When you overcome this challenge, you free yourself up to harvest its gifts, which can be feeling secure, feeling stable and grounded, perhaps doing better with prosperity. These are all the gifts that can be harvested from the first chakra. So the next time you feel fear, stop and take a breath and give yourself the affirmation. I feel fully grounded in my body and I can handle whatever life gives me. If your main block is in the sacral chakra, you might be plagued with guilt. You might think, oh, I shouldn't feel this way, I shouldn't say that I shouldn't have have this emotion, I shouldn't have this need, or I shouldn't have this sexual fantasy. And then maybe you respond by doing too much to earn your way to be okay. Or maybe you hold back and guilt stops the flow of the second chakra. Its element is water and it wants to flow freely. When you overcome this challenge, you can harvest the gift of a free flow of energy, of better grace in your movements of pleasure and just living life to the fullest. So next time you feel guilt, say to yourself, I have a right to feel what I'm feeling and I have a right to enjoy life fully. If your main block is in the solar plexus, sometimes called the power chakra, it may be that shame gets in your way, as it does for so many people that can show up in stories you tell yourself that you're not good enough, that there's something wrong with you, that no matter how much you do, you haven't done enough. Or it might hold you back from taking risks and really leading the life you want to lead. When you overcome this challenge, you can harvest the gifts of increased energy, of a stronger and more effective will and a sense of power and self esteem in your life. The next time you feel shame, you might stop and harvest the element of this chakra, which is fire. And say, the fire within me burns through all blocks and obstacles. If your main block is in the heart chakra, you might have an overload of grief. If that's the case, grief may show up in a way of protecting your heart. Because it's already been hurt. There's not so much room to take love in. You might feel depressed. You might feel like you're afraid to open your heart and take the chance on love again. But grief puts us more deeply in touch with ourselves. When we truly feel our grief and we release it, we turn this challenge into a gift. Greater vulnerability, greater connection with others. We open to compassion and we open the space for love to come in. Next time you feel that heaviness of grief in your heart, use the affirmation, I am open to love, to receiving love, to giving love, to sharing love. If you feel a persistent block in your throat chakra, you may have a hard time communicating. And that can be sometimes almost like living a lie, where it's hard to speak your truth. That might show up as it being really hard to say what you really think. It might show up as a kind of phoniness or nervousness that covers up what's real for you. It might show up as not believing what other people say, or not even knowing your own truth. When you overcome this challenge, you receive the gift of clear communication, of attunement to something larger and freeing up your creativity. The next time you feel blocked in your self expression, use this affirmation. I hear and speak the truth and my voice is necessary. If your block is in the third eye chakra, sometimes called the brow chakra, your main challenge is overcoming the gift of illusion. Current issues in life might be not seeing something that's right in front of you, living in denial, living in a fantasy world, difficulty remembering your dreams, hard to even see yourself. When you overcome this challenge, you receive the gift of clarity, knowing yourself better, of wisdom and of deepening your intuition, your imagination, and maybe receiving a vision for your life. The next time you feel blocked in your imagination, close your eyes and say to yourself, I see things clearly. I am open to, to the wisdom from within. But the crown chakra takes us to the ultimate freedom of consciousness. But we can't get there and frolic with the infinite. If we have a lot of attachments, you might feel fixated on a certain thought or a person. Or you might be attached to what people think of you, or to understanding. Or we get attached certainly to people and pets and places. And when you're attached, you're not free. So releasing attachment releases the liberating current to complete its journey. Releasing attachments is liberating. You get a return of energy and it can go back into the wholeness of deep wisdom. The next time you feel stuck on something, fixated on something you can't have or that's not working in your life, just stop, close your eyes and say the affirmation the universe is conspiring to shower me with wonderful blessings. I let go and I open to grace to guide me. So not only can your chakra be blocked by challenges, but it can become imbalanced. It can become excessive of energy or deficient of energy. Even one imbalanced chakra will affect all the other chakras in your system. If your foundation is off, everything else is compensating because they are all interconnected. So if you want deeper understanding of diagnosing the imbalances of your own chakras, come join me in this free masterclass with mindvalley. See you in the masterclass. Sam.
