Research Paper By Minna-Maria Virtanen
(Life Coach, Transformational Coach, FINLAND)
Introduction
During my coaching studies, I made a great discovery; I discovered an ancient concept of chakras. Interestingly enough, I found that the balance of chakras can be supported with the same methods I was already using and interested in: colour, movement, writing, meditation. For this reason, I take the opportunity to in my research paper to find answers, what chakras really are and what is the benefit of using them as a framework in blended coaching.
What are the chakras?
My first connection with the concept of chakras started very intuitively. I was searching for help for the anxiety that I had when I had to speak in front of a group. In coaching studies, I even did it in an international environment, in front of the always-changing group of people and online. In fact, I did not just have to give a talk, but also to coach – listen actively, understand variable accents and be relaxed in order to hear my intuition and ask good questions. Time after time I felt very uncomfortable and had difficulty to survive in the session because my body and mind seemed to freeze out of tension. Once my fellow student asked a coaching question: How could you support yourself? The answer came to my mind and although it was funny, I told him: “ I need more red colour”. After the session, I started to research and it reminded me that colours too are in fact frequencies. Colour red has the lowest frequency and this leads me to discover chakras. Colour red resonates with the lowest of chakras. The lowest chakra, called root chakra, is all about safety, security, physicality and belonging. My need for red made perfect sense to me.
I made experimentation with myself, I started to balance my root chakra by using movement, colour and affirmations. As a result of my experimentation, I didn’t only get support to talk in front of the group, but I found solutions for much more! I could more deeply understand the body, mind and energy connection. Before looking at more in detail how balancing chakras can benefit us, I’ll briefly define what are the chakras. To answer the question I have united teachings of several teachers. One of the teachers is Anodea Judith, who has done her life’s work on chakras. Secondly, I have studied materials created by Natalie Southgate, the founder of Chakradance. Lastly, I have discovered the teachings of Jeffrey Allen, who teaches energy tools to balance chakras. Moreover, I have found many yoga teachers, who along the yoga teaching teach also about chakras.
Definition for chakras is often that, they are energy centres in our energy body. (If the idea of energy body does not fit to one’s way of thinking, I’d like to say that it doesn’t matter, the chakras can function as a great metaphorical framework anyway.) Anodea Judith’s little more precise definition is that chakra is a centre of organization for the reception, assimilation and expression of the life force energy. They take place along our spine in a way that the first chakra is under our coccyx and the highest is on the top of our crown.
Chakra healing or balancing requires understanding how energy or life force runs through our body. In order to function well, we should be able to handle well situations where we feel a lot of energy, but also when we feel little of energy. When we hand handle lots of energy charge we can get a lot done. The same way it is important to be able to handle low energy (and not to rush to do something, because we might feel empty or lonely) because having low energy means we can go to deep relaxation, where renewal happens. In overall, the fact of how the energy runs through our body depends on where we are blocked, where we are open. Judith explains that what prevents us from dealing well with a full charge of energy, is that we have psychological woundings and we have actually shut down within the muscularity of the body. This blogs us to be able to receive our full life force. (Anodea Judith: Supercharge your chakras -online course) Working with chakras we remove blocks and balance the energy flow so that we feel more alive and we can use our potential more fully.
Below I will list how the energy flow of each chakra will manifest in our lives.
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Root chakra: Connecting to body and instinct
When our first chakra is balanced, we are healthy, we feel safe, our material needs are met well and we feel belonging to a place and a community. On the contrary, if we have problems in the area of health, survival, material including money, we can benefit from balancing the root chakra.
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Sacral Chakra: Connecting with feeling, desire and passion
The second chakra is about emotions and sexual energy. When it is balanced, we know our desires and passion, and feel motivated and empowered by them. We let emotions to move in a healthy way and enjoy our all senses.
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Solar Plexus Chakra: Connecting with our personal power
Solar plexus is about personal power. When it is balanced, we are connected to our power and we take action. We feel capable, worthy and enough.
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Heart Chakra: Connecting to love and compassion
When our heart chakra is balanced, we feel connected. We feel love for ourselves and for others. We are kind to ourselves and to others.
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Throat Chakra: Connecting to the expression
When our 5th chakra is balanced, we communicate our own truth. We express our self in a creative and unique way.
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Third Eye Chakra: Connecting to intuition
When our 6th chakra is balanced, we have vision and clarity for life. We don’t only use logic, but we hear our intuition for navigating in life.
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Crown Chakra: Connecting to a bigger self
When our 7th chakra is balanced, we have a higher sense of purpose in life. It means that we feel a connection with our bigger self the universe.
What are the methods for balancing the chakras?
Teachers propose different methods for balancing our chakras. Anodea Judith offers guided meditations and physical exercises. These exercises are mainly from the yoga tradition. In addition, she compares chakra development with developmental psychology and gives also questions to write about. Natalie Southgate has invented Chakradance. This means that she found (and later produced) music to resonate with each chakra. Moreover, she leads the participants to dance with a visualisation that helps to enter the energy of each chakra. After the chakra dance, she guides the participants to draw a mandala. This way the energy of the dance is as though integrated into the paper. Likewise Judith, Southgate also uses mediations. Jeffrey Allen instead works mainly with meditation and energy tools. He teaches techniques on how to move the energy block with our attention and energy awareness. No matter what is the technique, the great news that understanding chakras gives us insight on how to work from the insight out. By understanding where energy gets stuck, we can help ourselves in a pretty easy way. An example of this can be a person, who has great ideas about what she wants to manifest in her life. She can easily see the vision, she can speak about it, she feels motivated by it, she takes action, but she is not able to take the thing into the end. This can tell that the second and first chakra might need support. As we first work internally and change the flow in chakras, the environment follows that change. On the contrary often when we try to fix first the environment, we easily turn to our old patterns and the problem stays with us. Working from inside out brings us results that can be sustainable.
Next, I’ll have a look at which actions are mentioned to support each chakra.
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Root Chakra: Body and instinct
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Sacral Chakra: Feelings, sexual energy
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Solar Plexus: Personal power,
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Heart Chakra: Love and compassion
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Throat Chakra: Expression
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Third Eye Chakra: Intuition and vision
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Crown Chakra: Connection to bigger self
In conclusion
Discovery of the chakras has brought me a new understanding of the power of colour, words, music, physical movement, to our energy. Using these creative methods and guided meditation is one way we can balance our energy flow and can get rid of harmful patterns or behaviours that we might repeat. Awareness of our chakras gives us a map towards more freedom in our life, as we can spot things that we might have seen as part of our personality, but now we instead recognise them as areas where there’s something blocked. As we are able to release these blocks, we are freer to be ourselves – the best version of ourselves and to create the best version of our life.
I have tried some of the techniques such as yoga asanas, dance and affirmation with my coaching clients. Everyone has experienced the work positively, but as I have done one or two practises, my experience is still limited. I’m very much looking forward to starting using these practices with my future clients. Moreover, I already give courses called “Creative Break” and I’m curious to bring the chakra awareness also part of painting the sessions.
Resources:
Anodea Judith: The Sevenfold journey
Anodea Judith: Eastern body Western mind
Natalie Southgate: Chakradance
Online course: Anodea Judith: Supercharge your chakras
Online course: Yen Hilman: Journey through chakras
Online course: Brett Larkin: Lit up your chakras
Online course: Natalie Southgate: Chakradance to change your life
Online course: Jeffrey Allen: D