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

I would love to get some feedback on the love triangle in The Chakra Diaries for a screenplay being written.  I've lowered the price for a short time on Amazon.com: the KINDLE is on sale for just $2.99; the paperback for $8.99.  All those who email in a comment by July 31 will be put into a drawing for a fabulous week-long stay at Hale Haumea cottage on the Big Island of Hawaii (see www.VRBO.com/90588), with a yoga class included at Kalani Oceanside Resort. 
Namaste!  Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries
www.thechakras.org

 “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

Come to Paradise! Luxuriate for a week at Hale Haumea - a romantic artist's cottage surrounded by tropical foliage on the sunny Puna Peninsula south of Hilo. This destination is loaded with volcanic features - from viewing the crater and lava tubes at Volcanoes National Park, to luxuriating in natural hot ponds and steam baths, snorkeling in lava rock tidepools, or diving into the waves to swim with dolphins or whale watch on a spectacular black sand beach.

HOW TO ENTER:

The Chakra Diaries is being turned into a screenplay! Have your ideas included by providing feedback on the love triangle between the workshop leader and 2 attendees - Julie and Mark.

All those who read and email in a comment will be put into a drawing for a fabulous week-long stay for two at Hale Haumea cottage on the Big Island of Hawaii, with a yoga class included at Kalani Oceanside Resort. (Sorry, transportation not included; date of stay based on space availability. Entries due by July 31, 2011.)
Namaste!
Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries
Becca@TheChakras.org

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

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

Dear Searcher:
It's best to start at the beginning, balancing yourself so that you will be the perfect mate for the one you seek.

As the seat of passion, the base chakra builds a white-hot fire under our excitement, hones our instincts to a razor’s edge and dips our lover in irresistible aromas and hues that scratch our itch. Although fantasizing about our lover may fan the flames of wanton desire and fill our Blackberrys with salacious text messages, too much can create an inability to settle and a hyperactivity of the mind. Enter the grounding of the base chakra, otherwise known as the point at which the ladder to heaven rests.

Ironically if our base chakras are imbalanced, we may have a hard time accepting love or pleasure. There may actually be a large gap between what we could have, and what we allow ourselves to have.

As Saraha Doha has said, “…there are no other temples as blissful as our own bodies.”  We must make a pilgrimage to them, enter and come to know them. Our bodies await our acceptance, our validation, our love and deepest understanding.

Let us build our path to meaningful love brick by brick, forging ourselves into a lightning rod of spiritual growth and development by eating a diet replete with protein, avoiding heavily processed foods and those made with simple sugars. Let us stabilize and anchor by practicing the warrior pose, dance and drum to strengthen our bodies and spirits and nurture a regimen of daily meditation to release any excess activity from our ever-inquiring minds and wondrous bodies.

May we go boldly forward on our journey with resolute focus and unwavering faith. We will rid our minds of disbelief that love does not have our name on the list for as William Shakespeare has been quoted, “Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win.”

The stories in The Chakra Diaries start with Estrella's story, where she balances her root chakra. Like all the characters, her love life is a mess until she achieves balance. But, succeed they do, and you can too!

Namaste! Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries

I was recently asked why I wrote The Chakra Diaries and other questions by YogaLifeJourney.com. Here are some of my answers:

I started writing The Chakra Diaries as a short story – an homage to a colleague and friend, an energy healer, who got cancer, but died in peace and full of love because of the forgiveness work she did during her last few months. I had to make sense of her life’s story and I found I could do that through the lens of the chakras. So too, for the other characters who tell their stories in the “diary” format – you can see where their problems originated and experience their transformations and manifestations along with them. The soul of all their stories is the healing power of love.

As the chakra workshop leader, my character is on her own quest to live a life of discovery and love. Because of her humanity, she tends to love too much and overstep all the conventional boundaries, but “she stirs her students at levels everyone wants to be moved,” as one reviewer remarked.

Chakra balancing can help a person overcome emotional, physical, mental, social and spiritual challenges, and I wanted to show all these road blocks being removed by the rainbow of the chakras. While The Chakra Diaries is not a teaching guide (there are many fabulous reference books on the chakras), I hope it engrosses the reader with its true-to-life drama, sensuality and miraculous moments. Yogis and yoginis will probably nod their heads in agreement at many points of the stories and even get up and do some of the poses recommended by the workshop leader.

For the complete interview, see http://yogalifejourney.com/yoga-authors/yoga-story-becca-chopra-author-the-chakra-diaries/

As Hippocrates said, "Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease." In a recent discussion with Serge Kahili King, PhD, teacher of the Hawaiian Huna philosophy, he explained how everyone's body can achieve "instant healing" if there is no stress or tension. So that's where healers come in - they teach you to do yoga, meditate or chant, balance your chakras, do Qigong, exercise, breathe deeply, eat healthier food, perhaps take a pill to remove pain so that you can relax and heal. "All power comes from within," as King teaches in the Huna principles and that includes our power to heal. But we are all here on earth to help each other, and "healers" can help others to release the blocks in the flow of their healing energy. So, get that delightful massage, take that inspiring class, but put all your confidence and belief in your own ability to heal because, truly, all healing comes from within.
Namaste! Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries