Have you ever watched the film Frozen? If you have a daughter under ten at home then the chances are very high that you have! Let It Go is of course my daughter’s favourite song so naturally I have had to listen to it quite and few times and I have to say I realised today that the girl (Elsa) actually has a point! We should let go! We should let go of anything that we don’t need and I don’t mean clutter… well I do… I mean mental clutter. Stuff that is holding us back. Stuff that we don’t need anymore. This is what opening the heart chakra is all about.
Last weekend at my teacher training, which is proving to be a real journey of self discovery, we learned about the seven main chakras. For those of you that don’t speak yogi, chakras are energy centres in the body, that can strongly influence your physical body, well-being and consciousness. I’m not going into this in much detail but here is a nice brief explanation of the 7 chakras if you are interested in reading more. The one that stood out for me and spoke to me on a personal level was the heart chakra or anahata chakra which is associated with compassion, empathy and self-acceptance in a positive way and grief, sadness, envy and being heart-broken in a negative way.
Our goal is to balance out the heart chakra which will lead to unselfish love, compassion, joy, balance, generosity and self-acceptance. If it’s not working well it will affect us on an emotional level (feeling sad, judgmental towards ourselves and others, envious etc) which can ultimately affect our physical health. The health of the heart chakra is linked to the respiratory and circulatory systems meaning that anahata energy might be linked to asthma, bronchitis, lung cancer, breast cancer and the health of the shoulders, chest and thoracic spine (Swami Saradananda, The Essential Guide to Chakras)
In order to keep our heart chakra in balance or work towards balance we want to prevent and get rid of blockages, meaning blocked energy. One way is to work with asanas (the physical part of yoga) and backbends are really good for the heart chakra! Funny enough backbends are my least favourite poses and I strongly believe that we should practice more of what is difficult for us, as those are probably the poses that our body needs right now.
I’m in a really happy place at the moment, writing my blog (more or less) regularly, training to be a yoga teacher, spending lots of time with my beautiful children and having a very supportive and understanding husband. But like everyone else I’ve got “stuff” that I’m carrying around and I have been aware of this for a long time but I think I’ve never taken the conscious decision to let go of it.
I realise that I have been holding on to a lot of resentment, anger, guilt, and insecurity for more than 20 years of my life – pretty much since my parents’ divorce when I was eleven. My teenage years were a difficult time and they probably were for most of us but it’s time to let go of this old stuff! The past is in the past, right? I’m not a little girl anymore and all my experiences have made me into the person I am today which I am really proud of.
It doesn’t matter what bad things have happened to us in the past. It matters what we make of them and how we choose to let it affect us. We can’t change anything that has happened but we absolutely have the choice to either hold on to it and “enjoy” being a victim or we can move on, take what we have learned and be happy.
The first step is to forgive others and very often it is to forgive ourselves! It can often be painful and it takes as lot of courage but opening our hearts helps us to give as much as we receive. We can then stop judging ourselves and others, be compassionate, loving and find our full potential without anything holding us back.
Hi Christine. I can totally relate to the Frozen love – and my daughter is only two – please don’t tell me I have 9 more years of this to goâ¦! I’ve just found your blog (via twitter) and really enjoying what I’ve read so far. I’m a physio by training but I am teaching Pilates at the moment. I love both disciplines, but agree with one of your previous posts – Pilates can be boring – I think it sometimes suffers from teachers trying to be too true to the original work of Joe Pilates. I prefer modern styles – more explorative and creative – I like to encourage my clients to learn for themselves rather than following strict postures! I guess that’s a bit yoga! I have also discovered the benefits of meditation, and when I struggle to focus, I like to use guided meditations such as John Kabat-Zinn or Mark Williams (find on youtube) or Meditation Oasis podcasts – there is a really good Chakra one on there. Worth checking out!
Hi Anna,
Thank you very much for stopping by and taking the time to read a few of my posts! I will check out the guided meditations that you suggested as that is an area which is still quite difficult for me! And as I’m into chakras at the moment I will start with the last one!
This is something I need to learn! I love the idea of being a bit more open with things like yoga but I’m not sure yoga is for me? I am very un-supple (obviously something that would change with practice) and have shoulder (tendonitis or bursitis) and back issues (not sure) that may well be a hindrance?
absolutely not! Yoga will definitely be able to help you! You just have to find the right style of yoga (maybe Hatha or Iyengar) and find a good teacher who can help you! Listening to your body is the most important thing in yoga. It can definitely be really beneficial for people with back problems (like myself!)
The heart chakra is special. The heart, as scientists have discovered certainly does think for itself. Thx for article Yogaberry
I loved your article. I Felt like I was reading my own thoughts.