Who knew that our brain cells can change and adapt? And that Chakra Balancing techniques can help make that happen?

Imagine that you have been traumatized, like many of the characters in The Chakra Diaries, and many of the characters we all know in real life. Your limbic system, the part of the brain that acts on memory, can create a loop of fear, anger or pain, that your conscious mind has to work to change. It takes daily meditation, affirmations, yoga, Reiki or other energy work to repattern our synapses to react differently and free us from the past, and make anything possible in the future.

If you haven't tried to create a "New You" yet, read my last seven posts on balancing the 7 Chakras. They'll help you identify any of your chakras that may be out of balance. These chakras are the base of all energy medicine and once you have brought them into balance, the healing energy of your body can move freely, your limbic system can recover from trauma and stop associating the "now" with the past, and your future can be anything you want to make of it.

While Chakra Energy has been known for thousands of years, science is catching up - see some of the latest explanations on Brian Plasticity on YouTube - http://bit.ly/sUfY4v
Namaste!
Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries
www.thechakras.org

Just like you carry a few everyday items in your purse, pocket or car, like cough drops to soothe your throat, lip gloss to protect and brighten your lips or gym shoes for your lunchtime walk, having a set of crystals can be very useful for clearing energy blockages and opening chakras. They need not be fancy or showy and seem to work best when they are allowed to choose you. As proof that “everything” in this life is alive, aware and responsive, hold your hand over a few crystals and wait until one or more of them signals you that they are ready to become yours, to accompany you and to work with you by both absorbing and giving off energy.

Now, as the new guardian of your crystals and the recipient of their marvelous power, you have a responsibility to keep them clean and energized. First steep your new crystals overnight in a solution of sea salt and water and dry them thoroughly before you begin to use them.

Periodically, re-wash your crystals in the salt solution, or in rainwater and then re-energize them by exposing them to moon or sunlight for several hours. Take advantage of the healing energy of every full moon by leaving your crystals outside overnight.

Crystals can be simple, yet powerful tools when you’re seeking balance and a sense of well-being in your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual self.

To aid in general stress relief, try placing three clear quartz crystals, points facing outward, in a triangle just below your navel. Next, place three rose quartz stones in an arc above your pubic bone and relax for 4-5 minutes. Repeat as often as is needed for optimal energy flow.

For a complete Chakra Balance, try this simple crystal layout to reinforce your chakra energies and ensure they are functioning well.

Choose a grounding stone (black, brown or dark red) to place between your feet. Then choose a stone or crystal corresponding to the different colors of the chakras, placing the red one between your knees, the orange right above your pelvic bone, the yellow right above your navel, the green over your heart center, the light blue on your throat, indigo or dark blue on your forehead and a violet or clear stone on the floor just above the top of your head. Lie down with these stones in place for a period of about 5 minutes or until you feel complete, then remove the stones starting with the one above your head.

Relax for a few more minutes, still lying down, then enjoy a sense a well-being and balance, ready to face the stresses of the day ahead.

 “Oh, lead me to the Beyond within.” ~ Macrina Wieherkehr 

Spiritual oneness is the goal of opening the 7th chakra, the crown chakra, the point of knowing and enlightenment. It is our highest energy center, representing liberation, deep understanding, enlightenment and spiritual growth. It represents union with the higher self and the Divine. 

Major issues of an unbalanced Crown Chakra are lack of meaning in your life, a feeling of aloneness, depression, and on the physical level, chronic exhaustion and addictions to psychotropic and mind-altering drugs.

A balanced Crown Chakra brings a profound awakening, a connection to our spiritual nature as well as to cosmic consciousness. 

YOGA FOR THE CROWN CHAKRA
In addition to silent meditation, chanting and conscious breathing, a beneficial yoga pose to increase circulation to this chakra is the Downward Dog. 

THE CROWN CHAKRA MEDITATION
As we move up to the spiritual chakra at the crown of the head, the color indigo of the Third Eye Chakra turns to violet. All we have learned and healed through the lower six chakras merges and travels up the spine, creating a purple color. Here we open ourselves to awareness of the divine and our highest consciousness. Focus on breathing in the violet light, relaxing, letting go. Keeping your focus on the crown of your head, allow the chakra to open, visualizing it as a crown of light above your head. Feel it expanding and opening to the wonder and radiance of spirit. Send love up and out the crown chakra and then welcome its return in a beam of light that pours down through your whole being. Let the energy flow through you and around you and embrace totality.  Breathe in the power and the healing.

Imagine a rainbow of light pouring down your body, from your crown chakra down to your root chakra, enveloping you in harmony with everything above and below and around you. Enjoy!   

Namaste! Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries

Thanks, Becca, for your recent post on being in the moment, the only time one can experience happiness. Any other suggestions?
Miss-step

Dear Missy,
Having just finished a Hawaii Health Getaway on "The Art of Stress Management," I would first of all suggest lowering your stress level. Excess stress can put a damper on even the best conditions and create tension in your body that can lead to pain, and excess cortisol levels that can lead to a host of health problems. Therefore, if you're in a state of chronic stress, it's much more difficult to enjoy life. Find a stress-reliever you can incorporate into your life on a daily basis, e.g., deep abdominal breathing, yoga, meditation, relaxing in nature, and finding time to nurture yourself.

On the physical level, keep yourself healthy, an important criteria for happiness. Explore healthier nutrition, as well as a green lifestyle where you are not exposed to the toxic chemicals in fragrance products, household cleaners, pesticides, etc.  Despite the ad claims, these chemicals can cause depression and damage your nervous system and skew your hormone levels. Choose natural alternatives whenever possible.

If you feel emotional stress, let go of any anger about the past or fear about the future.

If you feel mental stress, give up criticism of yourself, and anyone or anything else. Focus on what you like, what you love, what does make you happy and ignore the rest.

On the spiritual level, find a purpose or meaning to your life. People are generally happier when they're living a life of meaning. Perhaps volunteer to a cause that you believe in - whether you have the time or money to donate to a cause, there are so many in need around the world, so many organizations with worthwhile goals.

Namaste!
Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries

Becca, with our country waging war in 3 countries right now, how can I maintain hope that our world will ever be a peaceful one? Is meditation enough?
Aghast in Alabama

Dear Aghast,
The advice to shut off the news is a good one I've heard many times. If you want to maintain hope, meditation is a good way to get in touch with your own compassionate nature. Please listen to my Chakra Meditations, especially for the Heart Chakra, to know that love and compassion do exist. If they exist in you, as we are all connected, they can exist throughout the world.

I recently read "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," and I can't recommend it enough to brighten your spirit. Despite the horrors of WWII related in the book, I was left with a smile and grateful tears that such brave, loving people could populate our world. In fact, I laughed out loud so many times, my neighbors wondered if I was doing another Laughter Yoga workshop.

Stay hopeful!
Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries

Why is the Dalai Lama always smiling? Meditation has been shown to increase the left frontal lobe of the brain - the happiness center. Plus, more and more research delineates the stress-relieving benefits of meditation...

• Fewer stress-related physical symptoms - including headaches, digestive disturbances, back pain, inflammatory disorders.
  
• Increased energy, vitality and creativity.
• An ease and calm to your day as you face its various challenges. Heightened & palpable connection to your inner self, to others and to Spirit.
• Regular access to synergy and guidance to help you easily make decisions.

Joan Borysenko just posted a 5-minute video on the science behind meditation. Check it out here.  To try the benefits of meditation, listen to the free Chakra Meditation from The Chakra Diaries on our Meditations page.
Namaste!
Becca

I'm so looking forward to contributing at Hawaii Health Getaway's program, "Mastering Stress for Optimal Health." If you're ready for a Spring Retreat, come to the Hawaii Health Getaway, April 30 - May 7, to learn mind-body healing techniques, healing touch and massage, conscious communication, optimal nutrition for the mind and body, plus yoga and meditation. The daily adventure excursions take you swimming with dolphins, hiking to magical waterfalls, watching the lava create fireworks as it flows into the ocean on the Big Island, and swimming and snorkeling in volcanically-heated warm ocean pools. For details, see www.HawaiiHealthGetaway.com.
Namaste,
Becca

According to medical research, meditation decreases oxygen consumption, heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure, and increases the intensity of alpha, theta and delta brain waves - the opposite of the changes that occur during the stress response that can lead to chronic disease.

The results of a study recently completed by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital also document meditation-produced improvements over time in the brain's gray matter, important for learning and memory.

In addition to restoring memory, meditation can also keep you younger as measured by reduction of blood pressure, and better vision and hearing.

So how do you reap these benefits? There are myriad meditation classes available, but if you'd like to start your own traditional eastern-style meditation practice at home to connect to your inner stillness and inner knowing, here are some tips for success:

Regularity - Try to schedule the same time each day for your meditation, for instance, just after awakening or just before bedtime.

Exercise - Doing yoga or other stretches first can relax your body, making it easier to sit in meditation.

Location - Choose a quiet spot with a cool breeze, just for meditation.

Sitting - Sit with your back straight, chest raised, head erect, eyes closed and hands resting palms upturned, in your lap.

Realistic time - It's better to start meditating 5 to 15 minutes at a time and be very consistent about it, then increase your time as you can.

Never fear - there is a meditation style for every personality. For example, Type A's may prefer a more active style of meditation, such as guided visualizations, which can offer the same benefits of relaxation. To try a guided visualization that you can listen to lying down, try my Chakra Meditation on the Meditations page of thechakras.org.
Namaste!
Becca

Do you have frequent sore throats, much trouble with swimmer’s ear, chronic sinusitis or asthma? Has your inner-Helen Reddy been caged and silenced, that is, are you speaking and no one is hearing you? If so, your Throat Chakra may be blocked. Balancing it could improve your ability to fluidly and creatively express your thoughts in voice and song. You may even be able to communicate telepathically by refining your skills to a high degree.

So, now that we know what the benefits of a balanced Throat Chakra are, how do we get to this elusive state of power beyond words; this place of calm where the majestic and amazingly powerful, yet largely silent elephant lives in harmony with the showy and threatening Queen of the Jungle?

Let’s begin as Mary Poppins might say, with A-B-C, airway, breathing and circulation. As I mentioned in yesterday’s thread, humans can live about 56 days without food or 12 days without water but only a mere 3 minutes without air. So, let’s practice breathing as deeply as we can, all the time, not just during yoga or meditation, but when we are at our work desk, on the train, waiting in traffic, feeding the chickens, riding our horse and even making love, either alone or with a partner. We can begin to harness our prana, to bring that rose of life back to our cheeks and peace to our hearts and minds by singing, chanting HAM or playing an instrument. The “melody” or rhythm of our expression is not important, only that we are creating a vibration that ripples through our gorgeous bodies and flows outward into the universe, ferrying our physical and emotional tensions with it.

If there are feelings of hurt or anger that are lurking in your mind that you just can’t seem to get rid of, write these feelings down on paper without editing or censure. Do not re-read or “polish” what you have written. Instead, burn the paper in your fireplace or over a candle to help cleanse your emotional debris. Repeat the process as many times as is needed to bring you to a sense of contentment and peace. Forgive yourself for your negative emotions – they are not your true being. Watch them come and go and rise above them.

Practice the Camel Pose or Ustrasana to open up the front of your body and to promote good blood supply to your neck, the seat of the Throat Chakra.
Namaste! Becca

In my chakra balancing workshop profiled in The Chakra Diaries, one student’s fourth chakra was profoundly closed. He was as suspicious of others as a stray cat, resentful at life for handing him not that bowl of cherries that he felt he so richly deserved, but a crate of sour grapes and buckets of ill will filled with woe-is-me. No wonder that despite his rugged good looks and stable income he was having such a “hard time” finding a lover and soul mate. His inner peace was pockmarked and fragmented, it resembled a battlefield of negative feelings littered with remnants of squandered life force. He was in every sense of the unspoken word, a mess.

I suggested that he passively meditate at every opportunity, allowing his memories of love and relationships to surface so that they could be examined and balanced. He taped ten affirmations of self acceptance on his bathroom mirror and car dashboard to guide him in becoming more grounded and open to love and compassion.

Over the course of the workshop, I saw this delightful, yet challenging man grow into a balance of his internal and external worlds. He became more open and accepting of life and less apt to sling blame, point fingers and retreat into a fortress of self-pity. He led the group in a practice of saturation blessings and appreciations of abundance, reminding the group that blessings flow where attention goes and that all power comes from within. In the final tally, he gave to the group far more than he took and I am forever thankful that he crossed my life. And I know he is sharing love wherever he goes now.
Namaste! Becca