Chakras 101: Part II
Thanks for tuning back in and desiring to learn more about the chakras. I hope you had an opportunity to check out Anne Van de Water’s website and practice her guided chakra meditation. Now that you have a good foundation and knowledge of the chakras, part two of our interview dives deeper into each chakra as Anne provides a thorough explanation of the psycho-emotional aspects of each chakra and explains the darker side of the chakras known as their shadow frequencies.
ML: Anne, can you tell us more about the psycho-emotional aspects of each chakra? Also, what is a shadow frequency?
AV: The shadow frequency of the chakras are heavy and stressful thoughts, feelings, and frequencies that can cause blocks to the balanced and harmonized flow of energy in the chakras.
The root chakra is all about being grounded, rooted, stable in our bodies and also about being a human and having all of our foundational needs met, like food, shelter, air, and water. The first chakra is really about me and my needs. When you work with the root chakra, it can help you to stabilize things in your life and it can help you become aware of where you are not living in congruency with those energies. For example, the shadow frequencies of the root chakra are scarcity consciousness, worry about your baseline needs, feeling unstable, unsafe, insecure, and disconnected from your body.
The second chakra is about sperm and egg coming together. There is me and there is the other. It’s the seed of creation, creativity, sensuality and sexuality. It is sweetness, pleasure, and it is when you have more energy to go beyond just the basic needs. You are able to think about other things that don’t have to do with baseline abundance, for example, prosperity and having a flow of money and resources. It has a lot to do with being in right relationships and, also, healthy relationships with people, places, and things. Rather than trying to get something from the world and being codependent.
Shadow frequencies of the second chakra are when you’re not enjoying life, feeling creative blocks, feeling shut down sexually, addicted to, or buffering with, drugs/alcohol/food, or in disharmonious relationships.
The third chakra, in the solar plexus, is all about power, strength and vitality. It is the energy path of the whole body that gives power and mojo to the rest of the chakras and the subtle bodies. It is a radiant center that allows you to bring your gifts to the world. How can I be this one-of-a-kind, brilliant, radiant, being, who is sharing my unique gifts to the planet where there are over seven billion people? This is really about who I am and knowing I have gifts to give to the planet. It is a lot about confidence and self-esteem.
The shadow side frequency is all about ego. For example, “I’m the only one who’s got it and you don’t have it.” Or maybe you think, “Who am I to shine my brilliance,” and then you shut it down. You give your power away to others, and try to fit in with others, so that you can be loved and accepted, rather than one of a kind.
The fourth chakra, the heart center, is about emotional issues that deal with love, compassion, forgiveness, empathy, joy, gratitude, beauty, harmony. This is where the “Guru” lives. “Gu” means darkness. “Ru” means light. So within your heart is the god within me (the teacher, the healer) who gives me the wisdom and the guidance on how to move through difficult and hard aspects of life into light, peace, and love. The heart center is where we have the capacity to say life can be really challenging sometimes. The heart chakra is the bridge between the human experience of the three lower chakras and the spiritual experience of the five upper chakras. We can pull the light down from the cosmos (the spiritual light) into the heart and then flow it down to our human experience.
The whole system is about growing ourselves as human beings and spiritual beings from the root to the lotus. Out of the mud comes the lotus. Working with the chakras is really about our capacity to be 100% human and to be 100% spiritual. We go through the human experience with our spiritual light and, also, bring our human experience into our lives as spiritual beings, and we then merge and yoke them. This is what yoga is really all about: we are here to be human, to be with mud, the darkness, the challenges, the meh, and to be with the light, the epiphany, the expansion, the spiritual awareness.
When we grow the capacity to be with all that is, that is actually what balances the chakras and keeps them spinning. If you override the human experience, that is not balance. And if you think you are just a human and forget your spirituality, then that creates a block in the energy field as well. When we get to the heart chakra where the inner guru dwells, that’s where we tap into this wisdom where we are able to be present with all of it. All of it is sacred. In Tantra, one of my favorite sayings is “if anything is sacred, then everything is sacred.” This human experience is sacred, the mud is sacred, and the spiritual experience (the lotus) is sacred.
The shadow frequency of the heart chakra is that there is no love, there’s nothing to love, there’s no reason to be here, and there is nothing to be grateful for, holding onto resentments, and being unforgiving.
The fifth chakra has to do with purification and, as the yogis say, where we are hardwired for the truth, consciousness, and bliss. The fifth chakra is all about being honest, in integrity, true, and aligned with the truth. When we are aligned with the truth, even when the truth is “I feel awful today,” if we are honest, then we keep it clean with ourselves. We keep our energy body clean, we keep our physical body clean, we keep our mental and emotional bodies clean, and our interactions with the world, people, places, and things clean. When we keep it clean, we are constantly purifying and taking the garbage out. The energy keeps flowing in a very harmonious way and we maintain health and wellness with ourselves. The fifth chakra is all about clear and honest communication and expressing ourselves in a unique one-of-a-kind artistic way.
The shadow frequency is all the homogenization of not being our unique self and taking on a lot of not-your-true-self energy to be loved and accepted. I’m going to water down who I really am in order to fit in, to be loved. It always screws us over because we are hardwired for the truth. Yoga, and working with the chakras, breath work, and all the meditations are really about stripping away all of that not-self energy that we’ve gathered up to help us stay aligned with our truest and deepest self.
The fifth chakra is all about expressing our truth, using the arts, using our voice, using dance, using art forms to express who we are. When we do that, it helps us to purify the stress, tension, and heavy energy. That is what yoga is all about: yoga is a dance of destruction. The basic precept of yoga is that we are pure consciousness, we are pure bliss, but we have to constantly clear, cleanse, release and let go of the heavy energy that’s blocking the experience of our true self. It’s this purification that never ends that is required. The yogis say that when we are honest, we become the light of higher awareness and the light of the Great Spirit floods through everything and takes over and we become the most benevolent extension of the benevolent source of all of existence, and this activates our true nature of Ananda, or bliss. Ananda is the deepest level of contentment, harmony, and bliss.
Next, we go to the sixth chakra, the third eye center called Ajna. This has to do with psychic awareness, intuition, higher wisdom, insight, clarity, and focus, the ability to be deeply connected all the time with spiritual energy, and to let that spiritual light and energy flow through the third eye center in the frontal lobe, and allow the amazing energy vortexes that are there to command the mind to think thoughts that are in alignment with your higher self.
When you begin to think thoughts that are aligned with your highest self, you will also speak words and take actions that are aligned with that. The third eye is there to literally command the body, mind, and heart to live in alignment with, and be a living embodiment of, our higher potential as spiritual beings. This is where enlightenment comes from. Enlightenment is our true nature.
The shadow side is when you override your intuition and override those insights. It can be scary when you think of a person and then they call, or if you think, “if I walk down this road, it could lead to this,” and then it actually happens. All of that big responsibility to claim is the gift of the third eye. There’s a big propensity toward trying to dumb it down or not see life from this higher spiritual perspective. Anytime you try to shut it down and just see life as being purely material, then you are cut off from the gifts of the third eye center. This is the center of self-mastery.
True self-mastery means I am going to be who I truly am. I’m going to think that way, speak that way, feel that way, embody that way, and constantly channel the light of my truest and highest self. That, to me, is true self-mastery, and we are not alone, because we come from a lineage of masters.
Another shadow frequency is when you forget that there are so many guides, guardians, and master teachers that have walked the path before us. In our yoga lineage, there are over 5,000 years of yogis, teachers, and students who have walked the path before us. We have a lot. We have a pretty awesome posse with us.
Last, but not least, is the crown chakra. This chakra is all about unity, consciousness, cosmic consciousness. It is I am that I am. I am one with the Creator, and I am simply an extension of the benevolent One. It has been proved by science that we are not separate and that we are all connected and constantly swapping energy. We came from the cosmos, and we are here in these physical forms as human beings on planet Earth, but we are made up of all of the elements and connected to all of existence.
When we tap into the quantum field which has been proven by quantum physics, the past, the present and the future are all happening simultaneously. We are connected to everything that has ever been, to everything that is, and to everything that will be. It is never-ending. We are here to be vessels through which all of that unity consciousness flows.
The shadow frequency is when you are not connected to anybody, feel you’re all alone, alienated, and disconnected as a human and spiritual being.
ML: Thank you so much, Anne, for sharing all your wisdom and experience with the chakras. This information is really profound, and I look forward to applying these practices in my life. Each chakra provides so much information! I love how we can create so much more awareness and balance in our lives by listening and working with our chakras.
AV: It is always a pleasure to be with you, and it is an honor to share my wisdom about the chakras with you.