The chakra system is an invaluable tool for aligning your energy. Understanding your seven chakras — and how you can work with them — is the key to enhancing how you feel as you move through your day.
At some point during your spiritual journey, you’ve probably come across a photo depicting the seven chakras. You know the one: There’s a figure sitting cross-legged, with seven rainbow-colored circles arranged vertically in the middle of the body.
There’s a reason those chakra pictographs are everywhere. It’s because the chakra system is a surprisingly simple yet invaluable tool for aligning your energy, which in turn affects your entire well-being — from the physical, mental, and emotional to the downright spiritual. Simply put: Learning how your seven chakras work, and how you can work with each one, can help you feel more balanced, in harmony and in tune with your intuition, and confident in your actions in body, mind, and spirit.
What Are the 7 Chakras?
The 7 major chakras in the body are:
- Root Chakra (Muladhara)
- Sacral Chakra (Svadhishthana)
- Solar Plexus Chakra (Manipura)
- Heart Chakra (Anahata)
- Throat Chakra (Vishuddha)
- Third Eye Chakra (Ajna)
- Crown Chakra (Sahasrara)
Better understanding these chakras and how they impact your well-being is important to living a balanced and harmonious life.
Interested in learning more? Check out Awaken Your Chakra Energy
What Exactly Are the Chakras?
“In general, the chakras are where we receive, assimilate, and distribute our life energies,” Diane Malaspina, PhD, an applied psychologist and yoga teacher, tells DailyOM. “The chakras are concentrated hubs or centers that align along the center of the body, from the base of the pelvic floor up to the crown of the head.”
According to intuitive and healer Cyndi Dale, whom DailyOM also spoke with for this story, “chakras are subtle energy organs, or energy centers.” Dale, who offers an Energy Healing Certification, which includes a deep dive into the chakra system, says that while much of our energy is unseen and not typically measurable with our five senses, X-rays, or radio waves, keeping our chakras open and balanced has long been understood as a powerful tool for our well-being.
Where Did Chakras Come From?
Chakra is a Sanskrit word meaning 'Wheel of Light,' and the concept has been around for a long time. Dale explains that thousands of years ago, the word “chakras” appeared in Vedic scriptures (ancient Hindu religious texts), though they were likely referring to literal spinning wheels. Later, “in the roots of yoga,” Dale says, chakras were seen closer to the way we understand them today. She says that she’s also “seen indications of something like chakras in other cultures, such as the Maya, Aztecs, and Cherokees” — further indication of an age-old understanding of the concept of the energy body and a recognition that we’re more than just a body: We’re energetic beings.
So … Why Should You Work With the 7 Chakras?
“By working with the chakras, we can better understand the self and use them as vehicles for transformation,” impacting our overall mental and physical health and well-being, explains Malaspina. “Once I learned this system, it informed everything for me.”
The 7 Major Chakras: What You Need to Know — and How to Balance and Align Them
Ready to start activating your chakras from the ground up? Read on as Dale and Malaspina share the basics here.
The first and most profound step to opening your chakras is to tune in to them in a nonjudgmental way. By asking yourself simple questions, and journaling your thoughts if you’re so inclined, you can unlock stale energies — which are typically limiting beliefs, painful memories, or even trauma — to make room for new energy to flow in.
To reap the biggest benefit, aim for a daily check-in with your chakras. Starting at the root chakra at the base of your pelvis, do a quick scan of your chakras one by one, physically and intuitively sensing if anything feels off. Note that each chakra has a different frequency, or rate at which it vibrates, and is represented by a color of the same frequency. To enhance your connection while tuning in to a chakra, it can be helpful to keep the color in mind. Our perception of chakras continues to evolve, and associating chakras with the colors of the rainbow is a much newer, Western addition to the ways in which we understand chakras today.
Once you’ve pinpointed the chakra(s) that need some TLC, take five or 10 minutes to journal or speak your thoughts out loud. This brief time spent focusing on yourself will help transmute any negative energy and lead to taking aligned action if needed, since, as Malaspina says, action follows insight.
#1: The Root Chakra (Muladhara)
Chakra Color: Red
Where It’s Located: The base of the spine/pelvic floor
What It Represents: The root chakra is all about our physical body, material needs, and security, Dale says. Since it encompasses our roots, Malaspina adds family of origin to that list. This is your action center!
How to Work With It: To get into alignment, ask yourself — either mentally or via journaling — What actions are working for me? What actions need to be different? How safe and financially secure in the world do I feel?
What Aligning Your Root Chakra Does: You’ll take effective, inspired actions without overdoing things, says Dale, and you’ll feel more confident, safe, and financially secure.
#2: The Sacral Chakra (Svadhishthana)
Chakra Color: Orange
Where It’s Located: The abdomen
What It Represents: “We now know that this area determines your emotions and feelings,” Dale says, so it’s not surprising that this center holds the microbiome — or the gut. Adds Malaspina, “It also represents creativity, sensuality, the fertility of ideas, and sexual flow.”
How to Work With It: Ask yourself, How is my emotional health? Am I overly emotional — or not emotional enough? How’s my sense of creativity? Am I experiencing any addictive tendencies or jealousy?
What Aligning Your Sacral Chakra Does: You’ll develop a healthier self-image and be able to accept change with more ease, Malaspina says.
#3: The Solar Plexus Chakra (Manipura)
Chakra Color: Yellow
Where It’s Located: Above the naval, but below the ribs
What It Represents: “Here’s where all your digestion is happening — of food and ideas,” Dale says. “It’s about ideas, belief systems, inner chatter, [and] how you pick up on information and how you perceive it. It organizes ideas, and so it’s the center that indicates work success.” It’s also about manifestation, transformation, personal power, motivation, and resilience, Malaspina says.
How to Work With It: Ask yourself, What thoughts do I have — and which ones am I putting in charge? Do I feel clarity, courage, and confidence?
What Aligning Your Solar Plexus Chakra Does: You’ll experience more clarity and courage, as well as a feeling of confident humility.
#4: The Heart Chakra (Anahata)
Chakra Color: Green
Where It’s Located: The physical heart space
What It Represents: The heart has been shown as an endocrine gland because it makes hormones like oxytocin, Dale notes. It’s the center of connection, love, bonding, and relationships.
How to Work With It: If you’re experiencing an issue related to a relationship, take a closer look. Ask yourself, Is there a particular pattern of behavior here? Journal about any sadness, stress, resentment, loneliness, perfectionism, and disagreement between your head and heart, Malaspina advises.
What Aligning Your Heart Chakra Does: Your relationships will flow with ease, your capacity for forgiveness and compassion will increase, and you’ll feel more self-love and more facility in listening to your heart.
#5: The Throat Chakra (Vishuddha)
Chakra Color: Blue
Where It’s Located: The throat/neck area and upper shoulders
What It Represents: The center of communication, this is where we speak, sing, and think, per Dale. She adds that it’s considered the center of clairaudience, which is the psychic ability to hear information.
How to Work With It: The theme here is expression. Ask yourself, Do I feel comfortable expressing what I’m thinking and asking for what I need — or not? Am I overly communicative, too impulsive with my expression, or highly critical? Do I make decisions easily?
What Aligning Your Throat Chakra Does: You’ll be able to express yourself freely and authentically.
#6: The Third Eye Chakra (Ajna)
Chakra Color: Violet
Where It’s Located: The brow area
What It Represents: “It connects into the pituitary gland, which is your master hormone, the gland dictating what your hormones are doing,” explains Dale. “This energy center is going to involve a lot of brain activity and is primarily about self-perception.”
How to Work With It: Ask yourself, How do I see myself? “If you have comparison issues or see yourself as less than,” Dale says, “that locks into the sixth chakra and affects your hormones.” Malaspina also recommends examining your self-awareness, any obsessive thinking, and/or whether you experience brain fog.
What Aligning Your Third Eye Chakra Does: You’ll feel tapped into your intuition, experiencing it with clarity.
#7: The Crown Chakra (Sahasrara)
Chakra Color: White
Where It’s Located: The pineal gland, a neuroendocrine organ in the center of the brain, per Dale, that’s implicated in mystical experiences
What It Represents: “It produces a lot of hormones necessary for balanced moods and sleep,” Dale says. “Essentially it’s considered the center of our spirit and our connection to the divine spirit.” Because the crown is considered the entry point for human life force, Malaspina notes that it influences the major body systems, including the muscular system, the skeleton, and the skin.
How to Work With It: Ask yourself, Can I sense my oneness, which is the feeling of being connected to everything in the universe? Or am I depressed, anxious, flat, or questioning my spiritual purpose or the meaning of life?
What Aligning Your Crown Chakra Does: It leads to greater attunement to self as well as a greater sense of humanitarianism and the development of transcendent ideas.
