What are chakras?

Shortly after I started yoga in 2008 I went on my first chakra retreat. At that point, I didn’t know what a chakra was, how to pronounce it, or how chakras would direct the retreat. I only remember seeing the word retreat, Santa Barbara, and yoga on the flyer, and I was intrigued. I had never been on a retreat, or to Santa Barbara, and knew no one that was going. For some reason though that little voice inside of me was nudging me to sign up. So I did.

This retreat marked the first real experience for me to start down a new path in life. It was as if a gate had opened up to my higher self. As I started to hear and process the information while moving my body, I instantly felt connected. I felt connected to the information, to myself, to know that I needed to make some changes in life.

The retreat definitely had me stepping outside of my comfort zone with some of the activities we did, but I found it to have grown my confidence levels. I was amazed at how warm and open the people I was surrounded with were. I learned so much about how out of tune I was with myself and this retreat reset me.  I realized I had control in how I lived, where I put my energy, where I put my thoughts, and how to start helping heal myself.

At the time I was still adjusting to major changes in life. It was my second year living in LA and physically I was a mess. I had bad acne, had lost a lot of weight, had super low energy, at a job I wasn’t happy at, and was single with very few friends.

This chakra retreat introduced me to people I’m still friends with, I gained a mentor, I was led to a holistic doctor that helped me gain my energy and weight back, acne cleared up, and I had clarity on what next job I wanted to find. This chakra retreat literally changed my life.

Since that first yoga retreat, I’ve been on numerous more, and have studied the chakras in depth through workshops, books, and personal experience. Through every retreat, workshop, book, or experience I learn something new about how the chakras relate to my body, mind, and spirit.

So what are chakras? The word chakra means ‘wheels of light’ and is our energetic system. There are 7 main energy centers (chakras) along our spine. Just like we have the physical body, the nervous system, and so on, we have also have this energetic system. You can’t see it, but it’s felt and often shows up as imbalances in our physical body, mind, and spirit. You can envision them as these spinning wheels of energy and each energy center correlates to different areas of the body. When we are out of balance in a certain chakra it can manifest as a physical problem, a mental/emotional block, or a spiritual pause. Even though the chakras are talked about separately they all affect each other and work together as a whole system.

There are many different things that you can do to help balance your chakras, but having an understanding of what each one represents is where it may be most beneficial to start.

I’ll be doing separate articles on each one so let’s dive in.

Namaste,

Laura