The Seven Chakras: A Guide to Growth, Healing & Self-Reflection
Whether you think of chakras as energy centers or simply as a framework for psychological growth, I continue to find them incredibly useful.
Each center represents a different aspect of being human—from safety and belonging to desire, power, love, voice, intuition, and purpose.
As you read through each one, notice what catches your attention. You may immediately recognize certain themes in your life, while others hardly resonate at all.
1ST CHAKRA 🍎 Red 🍎 Base of your spine through your legs & feet
What it covers:
- Your first years of life. Your basic needs. Safety. Security. Being seen, loved.
- Emotions pertaining to your childhood or family of origin.
- How you felt about the homes and neighborhoods you lived in, or the schools you attended?
- The patterning you were taught by tribal / societal / familial conditioning.
How to strengthen it now:
- Grounding tools to stay connected to your self, soul, nature:
Touch your bare feet to the ground - dirt, earth, grass.
Walk in silence. Hear your footsteps, feel them.
Put your feet in a tub of organic sea salt water.
Hold stones in your hands.
Hug a tree. Press your chest against the tree, wrap your arms around it.
Hug someone who's grounded.
Drum circles. Deep rhythmic music.
- Examine the rules you are plugged into and let go of old patterning:
Rules such as "Save your money. Be cautious, be safe.”
“By this age, I should be ______.”
“If I do xyz, I will be happy."
MEDITATION: I AM SECURE. I AM SAFE. I AM GROUNDED. I AM ROOTED.
2ND CHAKRA 🔥 Orange 🔥 Pelvic Floor, Pubic Area, Lower Abdomen
What it covers:
- Pleasure in relationships. Creativity. Joy. Sexuality. Passion. Your need to control. Comparison. Judgment. Addiction.
- Learning the value of relationship & partnership (including relationship with yourself). That it's not just me - we grow, share, create pleasure with others.
- Intimacy and trust.
- Your need to control others, to control events, to control the way things happen. Can you think of one person you are vitally interested and invested in controlling?
- Your attitudes about sexual attractiveness, about money, about the relationship between sexual attractiveness and money.
- Your capacity to nurture and be nurtured.
- Your creativity, the part of you that longs to give birth to ideas.
How to strengthen it now:
- Center yourself. Close your eyes & inhale & exhale slowly until you notice that your mental chatter has quieted.
- Rate your joy concerning your home, job, money, friends, family, partner, and creativity using 1 - 5 scale.
In the areas that you're low, focus on a time in your life when you were happy. Use that memory as a tool.
In the future, when making a choice, choose only those things that remind you of the happy time in your life.
Do your best to walk away when the feeling is not there.
- Get to know your desires. Ask yourself: what food, music, or activity is my favorite? You're trying to identify and develop your own happiness, independent of others.
- Take responsibility for your thoughts and emotions.
- Give more, expect less.
- Less black & white thinking.
- Pay attention to how many times you wonder, "What will they say if I do this?"
- Release guilt. Lie on your back and place your hand on your belly. Close your eyes and repeat either out loud or in your mind, "I have always done the very best I could, in every situation of my life, with what I knew at the time."
MEDITATION: I AM HEALTHY. I AM CREATIVE. I AM ABUNDANT. I AM CALM.
3RD CHAKRA ☀️ Yellow ☀️ Stomach, Gut
What it covers:
- Self-esteem. Self-worth. Fear. Power. Confidence.
- Boundaries.
How to strengthen it now:
- Clearing, activating breath techniques, such as Lion's Breath.
- Slow, long extended breathing with one hand on belly, one hand on heart.
- What have I been taught & mirrored about worth?
- Whose approval have I sought? What criticism has stuck with me? What have I decided makes me attractive?
- What is my personal honor code? What will I do or give up in order to keep another person in my life?
- Where am I invested in fear? Of being rejected, alone, criticized, abandoned, of disappointing others?
- My self-esteem is based on my capacity to follow my own self, not based on my capacity to please other people.
MEDITATION: I AM POWER. I AM CONFIDENT. I AM STRONG. I AM WORTHY.
4TH CHAKRA 🌿 Green 🌿 Heart
What it covers:
- Love. Forgiveness. Kindness. Compassion. Giving and Receiving.
- Appreciation. Gratitude. Humility. Unconditional love. Vulnerability.
- Your relationship with how things are.
- Your relationship to feelings of envy, desire, jealousy, contentment, self-love, love of others.
- Your capacity to love without an agenda.
How to strengthen it now:
- Clear out expectations of others. Take people for who they are.
- "I am" instead of "I want."
- LET GO. Of expectation of your life or another's life.
- What am I grateful for?
- Expand the heart. Lovingkindness meditation.
- Maturity in intellectual intelligence, emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence.
- Less words, less numbers, less counting.
- Flow, rhythm, stretch, move.
- Being in water is clearing.
- Stretch and open your shoulders, arms, hands.
- Tap on your collarbone and chest with your fingers.
- Connection to all living things. Understanding we are all one.
- Learn to not judge others. Find something you appreciate about them and genuinely feel it.
- Forgive self. Forgive others. Love for self. Love for others.
MEDITATION: I AM LOVE. I AM JOY. I AM OPEN. I AM PEACEFUL.
5TH CHAKRA 🌊 Blue 🌊 Throat
What it covers:
- Discovering your voice. Speaking your truth. Acting bravely.
- Your capacity to control yourself. To maintain yourself while being in a group of people and not compromise yourself in order to stay within that group of people.
- Staying strong enough to know what you need to do no matter what the outside world tells you.
How to strengthen it now:
- Write down everything you do that you know you shouldn't do and everything that you don't do that you know you should. See where the wires are crossed.
- Pay attention to how you excuse yourself to break your own rules (including the belief patterns you really shouldn't believe but do).
- Express yourself honestly.
- Jaw release.
- Listen. Listen to hear the voice within. Listening wakes you up. But the voice is quiet.
- Sing. Make sounds. OM. Chant. Music. Drumming. Vibration. Rhythm.
- The eyes are the truth. Look people in the eye.
MEDITATION: I AM FREE. I AM BALANCED. I AM TRUTHFUL. I AM LIBERATED.
6TH CHAKRA 🔮 Indigo - Purple 🔮 Third Eye
What it covers:
- Wisdom. Knowing. Intuition. Becoming a multisensory being.
- Higher sight. Higher creativity.
- Your capacity to use wisdom, to not judge.
How to strengthen it:
- While keeping your head still, make large circles with your eyes in one direction and then the other for 15 seconds each. Look up at the ceiling and down to the floor. Look as far left as you can and as far right.
- Pay attention to chills, visions, signs, synchronicities, a "knowing."
- Peace and calm are important in order to hear, notice.
- Yoga, meditation.
- Immerse in water.
- Trying to make a decision? Hold a symbol of the decision at your gut. Does your belly feel warm? Cool? Nothing?
- Practice becoming aware of your physical body in the moment multiple times a day. For example, feel your socks on your feet. What is my skin feeling? Are the socks tight, loose, heavy? Is the fabric cotton, synthetic?
MEDITATION: I AM GUIDED. I AM CENTERED. I AM CLEAR. I AM INTUITIVE.
7TH CHAKRA 💎 White 💎 Crown of Head
What it covers:
- Higher guidance. Spirituality. Consciousness. Unity.
- Your need for spiritual contact.
How to strengthen it:
- Meditation.
- Rituals.
- Call in energies - who do you want to talk to?
- Gratitude.
- Your job while you are on Earth is to discover your beautiful, unusual self and live your life authentically.
- The thing that keeps us from moving forward in our lives is fear. From there, we create defense mechanisms, which are behaviors that distance us from being fully aware. What are yours?
MEDITATION: I AM PRESENT. I AM WISE. I AM CONNECTED. I AM BEING.
You don't need to relate to every energy center. The aim is simply to notice where you're feeling called to grow.
The areas that resonate most deeply are often the ones asking for your attention.