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Balance Your Chakras to Balance Your Love Life

2/13/2015

If your chakras are blocked or closed, guess what? Your ability to give and receive love will also be blocked. Relationships will be difficult, and your ability to feel joy will be locked away.
The participants in one of my Chakra Workshops kept journals which clearly show how a blocked chakra can also block your love life and happiness as well. And how chakra balancing, using the meditations and other tools described, can lead to happier endings.

I want to remind you that everything is all about love. Life’s struggles (yes, even money issues) can be fixed with love. Every difficult relationship or situation can be remedied with love. Any chakra blockage may be healed and opened through love. The healing power of love can change things in an instant.

HERE'S HOW BALANCED CHAKRAS IMPROVE YOUR LOVE LIFE:
ROOT CHAKRA - When you feel grounded and safe, you feel like you belong and are able to be a more responsible partner.
SACRAL CHAKRA - When balanced, your creativity and sexuality are free-flowing, and you are able to be a more romantic partner.
SOLAR PLEXUS CHAKRA - With your personal power chakra balanced and your self-love in place, you will feel the confidence necessary to find and win your soul mate.
HEART CHAKRA - Love and compassion, the keynotes of a balanced Heart Chakra, will help you retain your relationships, through better or worse.
THROAT CHAKRA - With the ability to speak your truth about your needs and wants, your relationships will be more harmonious and fulfilling.
THIRD EYE CHAKRA - As you increase your intuition, you will have a closer bond, not only to your higher self, but to your loved ones.
CROWN CHAKRA - As you channel the divine love of the universe, you will be better able to act from a place of love in all areas of your life.

Learn more about the connection of balanced chakras and love in The Chakra Diaries, in which 10 people in a chakra workshop journal about their lives, troubles and relationship problems, and how they regain their balance, their joy, through THE HEALING POWER OF LOVE. Readers have found this look at how miracles can happen through forgiveness and love to be both enlightening and inspiring.

Here’s to love!
Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries, Chakra Secrets, Balance Your Chakras-Balance Your Life and The Chakra Energy Diet

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The Last Teacher - An Inspirational Read on Spiritual Awakening

6/26/2014

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The Last Teacher: Saints, Demons and Self-Discovery on the Spiritual Path by Michael L. Dales is at once a cautionary tale as well as an inspirational guide for those awakening to their spiritual journey.

Based on journals he kept while a devotee of Amma in India and The Great Healer in Bali, Dales writes an intriguing, honest, behind-the-scenes look at ashram life, following a guru, and both his good and difficult experiences seeking spiritual awakening.

Reading the book from the perspective of the chakras, I saw the dangers of an overactive Third Eye Chakra with imbalanced lower chakras. Starting as a child, Dales had an open Third Eye Chakra, extraordinary psychic experiences, and began Transcendental Meditation at the age of seven. However, he struggled during his early adult years with feeling "at home" or experiencing the abundance that a balanced Root Chakra, for example, can offer. As his spiritual path progressed, the balancing of his other chakras became evident, and I'm so pleased that he was able the express his creativity (Sacral Chakra) and inner truth (Throat Chakra) in writing this memoir and sharing his marvelous writing talent and wisdom.

I was especially inspired by his closing words that “anyone who earnestly chooses to embark on a spiritual journey – regardless of what they believe about themselves – can become a vessel for the Light that illuminates the world.” And the world needs Light Workers today more than ever.

The book intrigued me to ask Dales the following questions:

1) Do you feel people need a guru to help them on their spiritual journey or can a person be their own best guru?

DALES: I believe that at different stages along the journey from the self to the Self, one needs a guru and at other times one needs to walk the path alone. Also, I feel that there are as many versions of the path of spiritual Awakening as there are souls. Each soul’s journey is unique. So, I would never suggest a “one size fits all approach” to spirituality. I would never recommend that everyone have a guru, or no one. To follow a teacher or not, to stay with a teacher or not, is between the individual and God. The path must be felt in one’s heart.

2) What are you doing now that you have left the ashrams behind?

DALES: Surfing… ha ha. To be serious, I am writing and I am following a path of direct connection without any human intermediaries. It is just my Divine Beloved and me now. That’s what is working for me in the moment. I don’t recommend this path to anyone nor would I discourage anyone from following suit. I believe each individual must follow their heart whether or not they are following a guru, living in an ashram, or living an entirely secular life.

3) What specific spiritual truths do you hold fast to?

DALES: The greatest spiritual truth that I can grasp is that the Divine Source — That from which we all come — is Love. Love is our Source and is our ultimate goal.

The other truth is that the path of Awakening is an ongoing process of dissolving our blocks which hold us back from knowing the Supreme Self within.

4) What do you hope readers will take away from your book?

DALES: I hope that the reader will be inspired to follow her or his own unique path to the indwelling Divinity. Perhaps those curious about the spiritual path will get a taste of it and become inspired to follow their heart’s calling to find Divinity. Maybe other readers will read about the mistakes I made and make different choices. Maybe some on the path will be reinvigorated in their quest for Awakening. In truth, I felt called to write this book, which may mean it serves some purpose beyond any that I have in mind.

5) What advice do you have for others who have inspiration to share?

DALES: Please share it. Write it. Blog it. Talk about it. Sing about it. Whatever. When I was a kid, I read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. That book inspired me in a way that few other things in life did. It served as a window onto the spiritual path and alerted me to the possibility of exploring different levels of consciousness. Yogananda shared his experiences and it helped me and countless others who were interested in the spiritual path. Sharing your experiences can help others, sometimes in unexpected ways. For example, even though I am not a cook, I read the autobiography of a chef and I was moved by his frank depiction of his life in the restaurants of New York. That inspired me when I sat down to write The Last Teacher. I doubt that the chef would have ever expected his book to inspire someone writing a spiritual memoir, but it did. So, I feel that if you have something to share then share it. You don’t know how it may expand consciousness for others, but it just might. Sharing your experiences can alter the consciousness of others. What you have to say can be a valuable gift to a world.

The Last Teacher is available on Amazon.com in both Kindle and print versions.

Namaste!
Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Energy Diet, The Chakra Diaries, Chakra Secrets and Balance Your Chakras, Balance Your Life

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The "Instant Healing" Secret That Can Balance Your Chakras and Weight

6/20/2014

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Here’s the big secret… stress is screwing with your chakras as well as your physical health and body weight. I’m pretty sure that once you read how stress can sabotage your hormones (all linked to chakra centers), it will amaze you.

And the solution I’m going to share is so simple, it will amaze you too. We’re Always Searching For The “Magic Pill” For Weight Loss But let’s face it; you can’t lose weight when you’re stressed out! If you’re blaming yourself for not being your “perfect weight,” stop. It’s not your fault. Rather, the way our bodies are programmed to handle stress is the problem. Stress is a double whammy for weight – it increases our appetites and leads to overeating or poor food choices, then makes our bodies hold on to the fat. The solution is not extreme dieting, which causes more stress, but knowing how to stop the stress reactions.

When stressed, your body tries to protect itself as part of the “fight or flight” response, so your blood flows to your muscles and away from your internal organs. However, once the effects of adrenaline wear off, cortisol, known as the “stress hormone,” starts signaling the body to replenish your food stores.

Cortisol is a hormone that stimulates fat and carbohydrate metabolism for fast energy, and stimulates the release of insulin to maintain blood sugar levels. So, when stress causes your cortisol to surge, your appetite will be stimulated as well. Excess cortisol also slows down your metabolism, because your body wants to maintain an adequate supply of glucose to deal with the next “threat.”

So how can you tame the tension? In my book BALANCE YOUR CHAKRAS, BALANCE YOUR LIFE, I showed how to use Dynamind to balance your chakras. It’s an instant healing technique that works because it releases the tension from your body. Here’s how…

Try Dynamind to Release Tension, Ease Pain, and Reduce Food Cravings… The next time you’re upset, stressed, in pain, reaching for junk food instead of “chakra healing natural foods,” try the simple Dynamind technique, developed by Serge Kahili King, PhD, a Hawaiian Healer and Shaman.

The technique can be used to reprogram the unconscious mind, to remove tension and resulting food cravings and tell your body-mind what you’d like to experience – and it will follow your instructions. This works well to heal the imbalances of chakra energy.

1) FOCUS – Hold your hands out in a loose prayer-like position.

2) DECLARE – Say aloud the condition you’re feeling that you would like to change, e.g.,

“I feel anxiety and a craving for potato chips in the pit of my stomach and that can change. I want that feeling to go away.”

3) RELEASE – Tap 7 times on the center of your chest, then at the point between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, and on the top bone of your spine (the 7th cervical vertebra).

4) BREATHE – Direct your breath, inhaling with your attention on the crown of your head, exhaling with your attention below your feet.

Repeat until you feel the desired result.

I invite you to download a free video with complete instructions on how to use Dynamind.

Namaste!

Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Energy Diet, The Chakra Diaries, Chakra Secrets and Balance Your Chakras, Balance Your Life

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The Chakra Energy Diet Reviewed by Marya Mann, Quantum Healer

5/12/2014

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THE CHAKRA ENERGY DIET: The Right Food, Relaxation, Yoga & Exercise to Look and Feel Your Best! is reviewed here by Marya Mann, PhD, an author, Quantum Creativity Therapist and co-founder of the Loom of Love, a Center for Conscious Arts located in West Hawaii, on the Big Island:

From first tasty bite to the last, Becca Chopra’s vibrant new book is a feast for the senses, a square meal for the cells and a juicy delight for the higher mind. Fun, nutritious and colorful! And for dessert? She serves healing visualizations that help us set the table for zesty living where food is medicine, meals are celebrations, and honoring food is a meditation on achieving your full potential.

In short, in Chopra’s book, the supreme yoga is a culinary art.

But the book is not just for yogis. Chopra says people who struggle with seesaw dieting, self-love, relationship, success and prosperity issues can find clues to chakra imbalances in these life problems. “You can thank your body,” she writes, “for giving you the clues you need to reach for your perfect self.”

Connecting the dots between the energy source of problems and the behaviors that either help or hinder their resolution, Chopra offers simple, fun lifestyle solutions to reverse the disease-ridden trends of modern dining. Color-coding foods to reflect desired energy states, yoga poses to stimulate vitality, and affirmations to affirm your True Self are easy to find and use in the well-organized book designed to help you “feed your chakras with high quality energy.”

Part I highlights the saboteurs of your health and weight that you need to avoid. Stress and pushing down uncomfortable emotions are two of the main menaces, but sugar, GMO foods, saturated fats and MSG all warrant abstinence. In Part II, you learn to identify if a chakra is out of balance and exactly what to do about it. “Eating a rainbow of colors is important to keep the chakras balanced,” explains Chopra.

Besides specific food combinations, exercises and yoga postures, undemanding suggestions like incorporating light exercise after a meal – “aiding your digestion as well as lightening your stress load” – are included.

I have long admired the natural spirit and articulate science in Becca Chopra’s work. Her previous books – The Chakra Diaries, Chakra Secrets, and Balance Your Chakras, Balance Your Life – show an uncommon nuance and perspective in her ability to communicate the power of subtle energies in concrete terms. Now, her passionate, clear aesthetic shows how one can make an art out of eating and make food for the soul out of art.

Together with brilliant color photos, Chopra’s text arouses the hunger for good food, not empty calories, making this one of my favorite kitchen books, almost good enough to eat!

HELP CHILDREN EAT HEALTHIER TOO!

All proceeds from sales of the book in the following week are going to “Feed the Children,” connecting children in need with healthy food from local organic farmers. Find It now! THE CHAKRA ENERGY DIET is available on Amazon Kindle at http://amzn.to/1geaE1y.

Reviewer Marya Mann is co-author of Healing Our Planet, Healing Our Selves. Dr. Marya has over 50 state-of-the-art tools that clear old “tapes,” dissolve pain and have you visioning your best future immediately. Also Advanced Micro-Nutrition, Energy Balancing and Life Coaching. She can be reached at www.maryamann.com for phone consultations.

Namaste!

Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Energy Diet, The Chakra Diaries, Chakra Secrets and Balance Your Chakras, Balance Your Life

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CONNECT TO YOUR SPIRITUAL STRENGTH - BALANCE YOUR CROWN CHAKRA

3/31/2014

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In my last six blogs, I've given a preview of information that will be included in the upcoming book, THE CHAKRA DIET. We've now reached the 7th major chakra, the Crown Chakra.

If you agree with more than 3 or 4 of the following statements, you may want to look at ways to heal your Crown Chakra, which will help you transform and connect with your higher self, the infinite spirit, God…

CROWN CHAKRA ISSUES

I have very strong religious or spiritual beliefs.
I tend to get in debates about my spiritual beliefs.
I lack faith in a higher power.
I have stayed with my childhood religion without introspection about my actual beliefs.
Religious fanatics drive me crazy.
I feel confused about God or religious practices.
I feel let down by God.
I feel all alone.
I’m spiritual to the extent that I often neglect my physical body.
I converse with god, spirits or angels more than with people.

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, located at the top of the head and extending above it about two inches. It represents liberation, humanitarianism, deep understanding, and spiritual growth, union with the higher self and the Divine.

After my best friend died, all my energy centers were affected but I recognized these emotional or mental issues commonly associated with the Crown Chakra – a feeling of aloneness, depression, and a loss of meaning. I prayed for Divine help and received a deep connection to universal love, to my friend, and knowing that her spirit lived on.

Opening or balancing your Crown Chakra can bring a profound awakening, a connection to our spiritual nature as well as to cosmic consciousness.

Crown Chakra Healing Foods

Since the crown chakra is more spiritual than physical, it is not nourished with physical foods in the same way that they feed other chakras. The correlation between the Crown Chakra and food is to make it a spiritual experience, whether by purifying the body through fasting for religious reasons during Ramadan or Yom Kippur, giving up a special food for Lent, or adding prayer or grace before meals.

We’ve all either said grace before eating as a child, or seen others do it, but have you continued this practice? It’s a valuable tool to bless your food with a healing intention and vibration. You can use a general blessing, or one adapted to a specific chakra that you want to strengthen. For the Crown Chakra: “May this food bless and nourish my body and help me support my spiritual purpose.”

Detoxification cleanses, such as juice fasting, can also benefit the Crown Chakra. I especially like juicing mangosteen, in season now in Hawaii, with its luscious purple color – associated with the Crown Chakra – for a detoxifying cleanse. Mangosteen contains powerful antioxidants and immune system boosters called Xanthones, natural chemical compounds which possess a variety of potent medicinal properties.

Foods that are pure and unadulterated also keep the Crown Chakra open and integrated with spirit. Pure foods include those organically grown without chemicals or genetic modification. For animal foods, choose those raised in a natural environment, free-range or fed organic feed, without being injected with excess hormones or antibiotics.

Crown Chakra Healing Activities and Yoga Poses

While the Third Eye Chakra is often connected to meditation, the Crown Chakra is more connected to prayer or devotion to a higher power. Prayer could mean anything from singing religious hymns or reciting formal prayers or psalms, to devotional chanting like kirtan. The Downward Dog yoga pose increases circulation to the head, increasing mental clarity and readying you for prayer. Being in nature, breathing in sunlight and fresh air, will also energize the Crown Chakra.

Crown Chakra Visualization

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.

March 31st is the last day to enter to win a free, personalized Chakra Diet Plan below, which will also guarantee you a FREE copy of my forthcoming book, The Chakra Diet.

Namaste!
Becca

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Open and Heal your Heart Chakra by Forgiving Everyone for Everything

2/10/2014

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Can you forgive everyone that's ever hurt you, including yourself? With Iyanla Vanzant's help in her new book, Forgiveness: 21 Days to Forgive Everyone for Everything, I was able to recognize emotions I thought had been long ago dealt with, and deal with them as I traveled the forgiveness journey with her.Spiritual life coach Iyanla Vanzant takes you headfirst, soul deep into the practice of forgiving yourself, your body, your life, your parents, your choices, your relationship with money, and more... no stone or grudge is left unearthed.

We can heal our Heart Chakra through forgiveness. The term "a broken heart" can be taken literally if we look at the Heart Chakra and recognize that the heart bond we've made with another is torn, or the flow of energy is damaged because of lack of self-love. Holding on to anger, resentment or judgment can cause the Heart Chakra energy to become stagnant, blocked, or even too open with no filters.

What is the benefit of following Iyanla's forgiveness protocols in this book? Practicing forgiveness, as she demonstrates, helps you keep your energy clear and manifest what you truly want... living your life with more love for yourself and others. Through the journaling pages and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) tapping instructions in the book, and the soothing meditations in the accompanying CD, you are given the tools to eliminate any excess mental or emotional weight that keeps you stuck in repetitive situations, circumstances and experiences that are not healthy or productive.

You can simply read this book for its wonderful insights and interesting "Forgiveness Stories" in each chapter. Or you can take it one day at a time with Iyanla and spend 21 days following her system of total forgiveness. It's work, but it's worth it. As she says, "Forgiveness helps to transform and eliminate the energy blockages that we hold in our minds about who we are and who others are, and the subsequent issues or upsets that grow from the thoughts, beliefs and judgments we hold." If found the part on letting go of judgments to be very powerful, as they create needless suffering.

Although I practice Dynamind, a simplified version of EFT that I describe in my books Chakra Secrets and Balance Your Chakras, Balance Your Life, I found the tapping effective in eliminating the stress caused by energetic blockages from negative thoughts that needed to be forgiven.

Day 1 in the Forgiveness Ritual is "Forgiving Myself for Judging Myself," the most self-loving, self-affirming practice you can do, opening the heart, mind and spirit to greater possibilities. Once you reach Day 18 and "Forgive the World," you spend the last three days of the program writing forgiveness letters that you never send, because acknowledging your emotions and writing them is what is important. Once completed, forgiveness will be a new tool in your skill set to live your life to the fullest.

Namaste!
Becca Chopra, author of Balance Your Chakras, Balance Your Life, Chakra Secrets, and The Chakra Diaries

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End Cravings by Feeding the Solar Plexus Chakra

1/31/2014

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I'd like to shed some light on the Solar Plexus Chakra and the foods and activities that can warm and feed your energy and health in that area. Located right above the navel, the third chakra, the Solar Plexus Chakra, is the focal point of your identity and self-esteem, also known as your power center. It is associated with the digestive organs and metabolism, processing energy and giving you the zest you need to get through your busy day. It vibrates with the energy of the color yellow.

You may recognize some of these emotional or mental health issues commonly associated with the Solar Plexus Chakra – poor self-image, indecision, fear and anger, powerlessness, greed, stubbornness, apathy and compulsive behavior.

Physical health issues include digestive disorders, food allergies, diabetes, ulcers, liver problems like hepatitis or jaundice, gallstones, and adrenal fatigue.

What do you crave? Addictive behavior associated with the Solar Plexus include cravings for caffeine, sugar and carbohydrates.

When the Solar Plexus Chakra is balanced, you’ll feel energetic, cheerful, willing to persevere and finish your projects, confident in your instincts and abilities, purposeful and organized.

Foods, especially those that share colors with the chakras, carry vibrations that can activate or balance your chakras.

Solar Plexus Chakra Healing Foods:

If you want to balance your Sacral Chakra, and reduce cravings that lead to overeating, replace processed carbohydrates that tend to be addictive... most are loaded with just the right amount of sugar, oil and salt to make sure you can't eat just one, like potato chips or fries. Processed foods also contain GMOs which have been shown to cause inflammation of the stomach lining and poor digestion. Instead, focus on filling, nutritious, gluten-free whole grain dishes and snacks that will fuel your muscles and brain with energy. I like to start my winter day with a steaming bowl of oatmeal with a touch of local honey.

Replace your slice of bread with a half cup of brown rice, oats, millet, quinoa, amaranth, teff, polenta, or buckwheat - experiment with the flavors and textures of the various whole grains, and cooking them together.

As each chakra is associated with an endocrine gland, the Solar Plexus Chakra is associated with the pancreas, so eat to keep your blood sugar and insulin in the normal range and avoid the current epidemic of diabetes. The pancreas is connected to all your digestive organs, so don't overload them with toxins like alcohol, trans fats, artificial flavors and sweeteners, or pesticided foods. Include yellow foods that provide enzymes for good digestion, like papayas and pineapples, in addition to corn, squash, beans, peppers and poultry, and spices like ginger and tumeric.

Squash & Millet Satisfies your Sweet Tooth

The overconsumption of simple sugars as opposed to complex carbohydrates such as whole grains can cause chaotic blood sugar levels, leading to hypoglycemia and even Type 2 Diabetes. A perfect dish to replace white potatoes or white rice (which quickly turn to sugar in your blood stream) is millet. It has a cheerful yellow color and is the perfect complement to sweet winter squashes to satisfy your cravings for sweets without spiking your blood sugar.

Millet is so easy to make - like most grains, simply rinse, add 2 parts water to one part grain, add a pinch of sea salt, bring to a boil, then simmer for 25 minutes. It's especially tasty and appetizing when served with baked Acorn squash.

Solar Plexus Chakra Healing Activities: Power Yoga is especially suited to the Solar Plexus Chakra. I also like to include the Spinal Twist, the Bow, the Boat and the Camel when I concentrate on balancing the Sacral Chakra.

While the Root Chakra is all about grounding to Mother Earth, and the Sacral Chakra is about reaching out to others in physical movement like dance and swimming, the Solar Plexus Chakra is all about personal strength. Other recommended exercise includes speed walking, hiking or jogging, aerobics or spin classes, and strength building routines like circuit training.

Namaste!
Becca

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Chakra Balancing Made Easy

10/28/2013

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Balance Your Chakras, Balance Your Life, an Amazon Kindle Book, offers an extraordinary healing technique I learned from Serge Kahili King, PhD, a Hawaiian shaman. He helped me apply his Dynamind technique to chakra healing – which leads to healing of both physical and emotional pain and the root cause for it. In this short book, I show you how you can balance your 7 chakras, starting with balancing the Root Chakra up to the Crown Chakra, to heal every aspect of your life, from your financial security, sex life and self-esteem, to your relationships, communication and intuition. If you want a quick and easy explanation of the chakra system and how it affects your mind, body and emotions, you’ll find that here.

Whether you experience pain, illness or stress, or just want to enhance your energy, Dynamind is an “instant” healing technique that can deliver relief in just a few minutes. Yesterday, I worked with a friend who had sciatic pain and after three rounds of Dynamind to ground his root chakra, releasing the fear and frustration that had been causing tension in his muscles, he was able to easily get up from his yoga mat and ride his bike home.

Reader reviews say:

“I read this book and another of Becca’s, checked out her website, and viewed her video that follows this book. For the first time in 2 years, I am pain free. I am more at peace. THANKS!”

“I am already familiar with EFT, so this new technique that Becca Chopra presents in this book really intrigued me. I am still in the process of reading the book and trying out the Dynamind technique, and am feeling the benefits already.”

Balance Your Chakras, Balance Your Life contains:
* Step-by-step instructions in using Dynamind for chakra cleansing and balancing, and eliminating physical or emotional pain. Dynamind has often been termed “Fast EFT,” because it is also a tapping technique but only has 4 tapping spots instead of 24 or more. It also includes statements, visualization and deep breathing…. which is why it’s so quick at releasing tension.
* Dynamind Toners for each of the 7 chakras that you can do in minutes per day to strengthen your energy and maintain chakra balance.
* Color photos of chakra crystals and chakra mantras, for use in chakra healing visualizations, chakra meditations and chakra sound healing.

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE VIDEO
This Dynamind process is simple yet profound – try it today to balance your chakras and balance your life. This week, I am offering the companion DVD, Balance & Tone Your Chakras, for free on video streaming, so you can follow along with me as I use Dynamind to balance and tone my chakras. Just click here to download your free video.

Namaste!
Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries, Chakra Secrets, and Balance Your Chakras, Balance Your Life

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Chakra Secrets - Free Today on Kindle

10/10/2013

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My life story, interwoven with the healing and balancing techniques that have kept me uplifted – emotionally, physically and spiritually, Chakra Secrets, is FREE today on Amazon Kindle.

I invite you to download it, give it a read, and please take a moment to say what you found interesting or helpful on Amazon reviews. Here’s what a few other readers/writers have said about it.

An Inspirational Memoir ~ R. R. Harris, editor and author of Double Take
Chakra Secrets by Becca Chopra is part memoir, part fun, part romance, part drama and pure inspiration. It’s timeless, offering a look at one woman’s path through tragedy, guilt, unhappiness and chakra imbalance, into a state of grace – happy, healthy and loved. And even better, it’s free today for Kindle download to any reading device. Just go to http://amzn.to/15S76wr.

Love, sex and chakras. A great read! ~ Tom Rapsas, author of Life Tweets: Inspirational & Spiritual Insights That Can Change Your Life
“I thought Chakra Secrets was a blast, an easy read that’s both educational and entertaining. For starters, it appears to be loosely based on the author’s (adult) life story as she moves from one relationship to another while developing an interest and prowess in the chakras. There’s love, sex, loss (the death of her wandering husband), and a foray into reincarnation–even a side story on a notorious Hollywood star and couple that are part of her life (thinly veiled, see if you can figure out who they are). While she touches on the chakras throughout, there’s also a very helpful “Part 2″ at the end of the book. It details the 7 chakras and how to tap into them, including instructions on how to cure what ails you. Highly recommended!”

Reads like a novel with a BONUS! ~ Harriette Knight, author of CHAKRA POWER! How to Fire Up Your Energy Centers to Live a Fuller Life
“Becca Chopra’s CHAKRA SECRETS is both a prequel and sequel to her wonderful CHAKRA DIARIES. What I love most about these books is that they read like a novel, and that the stories overlap. They are totally engaging and engrossing and difficult to put down. Becca’s honesty is searing. She bares her soul for all of us to see, and relate to. There is a human-ness that is shared that goes beyond author and reader. The exercises in the back of the book are a BONUS and one I have referred to over and over. I love how Becca intertwines her own journey with the teachings of yoga and the chakras. She is a gift to all of us and a voice that needs to be heard.”

I Loved This Book! ~ Marla Martenson, author of Amateur Night
“What a great read. I am a fan of memoir and I just love a true story. Becca is brutally honest in this tale of finding herself. I am also an author of memoirs and her story reminded me of myself. She went through heartbreak, confusion, adventures, and learned valuable lessons. I love her writing style, and found the book hard to put down. Becca also teaches us about chakras in the book and gives a great exercise to open them up. I am eager to try it. I have also ordered her other books. She has a new fan!”

A Mainstream Fan ~ Wendy Naarup, author of Piece by Piece
“This honest, candid story about the author’s journey to happiness introduced me to the world of yoga and chakras. I didn’t need a drop of holistic background to fall in love with the characters and empathize with their struggles, the struggles so many of us have trying to find authenticity and balance a midst the confusion and unfairness of life. The author doesn’t just share her life, she offers a path. I’m intrigued. I never thought I’d say this, but I feel like taking yoga.”

Happy reading! Just go to http://amzn.to/15S76wr.
Becca Chopra

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Psoas Muscle is Connected to the Root and Sacral Chakras

8/27/2013

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The psoas muscle is connected energetically to the Sacral Chakra, which is associated with our sexuality and moving into relationship (dancing and swimming are two exercises in addition to yoga stretches that are recommended to strengthen this chakra). The psoas muscle also extends down to the Root Chakra which grounds us and makes us feel secure and safe in the world (squatting in the garden to pull weeds is one of my favorite stretches to both ground my Root Chakra and release my psoas muscle). In my morning yoga routine, I do reclined Cobbler’s Pose, gently pressing my thighs away from my hips as my spine extends and psoas tightness is released.

Here is a very detailed description of the psoas muscle which provides detailed information on how your yoga practice may be helping or actually hurting this “muscle of the soul” from BodyDivineYoga.wordpress.com:

The Psoas: Muscle of The Soul
by Danielle Prohom Olson
"I was delighted when I first came across Liz Koch’s amazing work because it confirmed much of what I’d been intuiting on my own. I had begun to open and close my yoga practise with hip opening poses with the specific intention of releasing tension in my psoas and hip flexors. I’d breathe and imagine tension flowing out of constricted muscles to be released as energy into the torso.

It worked, I’d feel my body soften yet somehow grow stronger.

Reading Liz Koch I instantly realized what I was doing – by learning to relax my psoas I was literally energizing my deepest core by reconnecting with the powerful energy of the earth. According to Koch, the psoas is far more than a core stabilizing muscle; it is an organ of perception composed of bio-intelligent tissue and “literally embodies our deepest urge for survival, and more profoundly, our elemental desire to flourish.”

Well, I just had to learn more. Here is just a sprinkling of the research that Liz Koch and others have uncovered regarding the importance of the psoas to our health, vitality and emotional well-being.

The Psoas muscle (pronounced so-as) is the deepest muscle of the human body affecting our structural balance, muscular integrity, flexibility, strength, range of motion, joint mobility, and organ functioning.

Growing out of both sides of the spine, the psoas spans laterally from the 12th thoracic vertebrae (T12) to each of the 5 lumbar vertebrae. From there it flows down through the abdominal core, the pelvis, to attach to the top of the femur (thigh) bone.

The Psoas is the only ‘muscle’ to connect the spine to the legs. It is responsible for holding us upright, and allows us to lift our legs in order to walk. A healthily functioning psoas stabilizes the spine and provides support through the trunk, forming a shelf for the vital organs of the abdominal core.

The psoas is connected to the diaphragm through connective tissue or fascia which affects both our breath and fear reflex. This is because the psoas is directly linked to the reptilian brain, the most ancient interior part of the brain stem and spinal cord. As Koch writes “Long before the spoken word or the organizing capacity of the cortex developed, the reptilian brain, known for its survival instincts, maintained our essential core functioning.”

Koch believes that our fast paced modern lifestyle (which runs on the adrenaline of our sympathetic nervous system) chronically triggers and tightens the psoas – making it literally ready to run or fight. The psoas helps you to spring into action – or curl you up into a protective ball.

If we constantly contract the psoas to due to stress or tension , the muscle eventually begins to shorten leading to a host of painful conditions including low back pain, sacroiliac pain, sciatica, disc problems, spondylolysis, scoliosis, hip degeneration, knee pain, menstruation pain, infertility, and digestive problems.

A tight psoas not only creates structural problems, it constricts the organs, puts pressure on nerves, interferes with the movement of fluids, and impairs diaphragmatic breathing.

In fact, “The psoas is so intimately involved in such basic physical and emotional reactions, that a chronically tightened psoas continually signals your body that you’re in danger, eventually exhausting the adrenal glands and depleting the immune system.”

And according to Koch, this situation is exacerbated by many things in our modern lifestyle, from car seats to constrictive clothing, from chairs to shoes that distort our posture, curtail our natural movements and further constrict our psoas.

Koch believes the first step in cultivating a healthy psoas is to release unnecessary tension. But “to work with the psoas is not to try to control the muscle, but to cultivate the awareness necessary for sensing its messages. This involves making a conscious choice to become somatically aware.”

A relaxed psoas is the mark of play and creative expression. Instead of the contracted psoas, ready to run or fight, the relaxed and released psoas is ready instead to lengthen and open, to dance. In many yoga poses (like tree) the thighs can’t fully rotate outward unless the psoas releases. A released psoas allows the front of the thighs to lengthen and the leg to move independently from the pelvis, enhancing and deepening the lift of the entire torso and heart.

Koch believes that by cultivating a healthy psoas, we can rekindle our body’s vital energies by learning to reconnect with the life force of the universe. Within the Taoist tradition the psoas is spoken of as the seat or muscle of the soul, and surrounds the lower “Dan tien” a major energy center of body. A flexible and strong psoas grounds us and allows subtle energies to flow through the bones, muscles and joints.

Koch writes “The psoas, by conducting energy, grounds us to the earth, just as a grounding wire prevents shocks and eliminates static on a radio. Freed and grounded, the spine can awaken”…“ As gravitational flows transfer weight through bones, tissue, and muscle, into the earth, the earth rebounds, flowing back up the legs and spine, energizing, coordinating and animating posture, movement and expression. It is an uninterrupted conversation between self, earth, and cosmos.”

So, it might be worth it, next time you practice, to tune in and pay attention to what your bio-intelligent psoas has to say."

Namaste!
Becca Chopra

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