Caring for Your Energy Centers
"The field is the sole governing agency of the particle." Albert Einstein
Energy Is the Language of Your Body
Your body speaks and understands the language of energy. Understanding and learning this language can help you to cultivate your body's natural ability to heal. Our bodies are composed of a matrix of energy that exists within and extends beyond our physical boundaries. These energies are foundational to our health. The Chinese call them "chi." Yogic tradition calls them "prana." The Sufis call them "barakah." The whole universe is vibrating, and we are part of that vibration. You may have heard the term "quantum field" which is a subatomic field of information, frequency, and energy. Matter as we know it is perceived when vibrations in the quantum slow down enough to be perceived with our physical senses.
Energy is within us and all around us, and we can learn to tap into it. Recent research by the University of California Medical School and Dr. Joe Dispenza is showing that meditation creates coherence in our energy field, and this coherent energy causes measurable changes in biology that results in better health outcomes. We are basically wearing our energy field, and if we can learn how to keep these energies humming, it can have a positive effect on our health.
Our Energy Centers
Traditional wisdom holds that we have seven energy centers, or chakras, that run from the base of our spine to the crown of our head. These centers are spinning vortexes of energy that govern the glands in our endocrine system and influence the organs in our body. They affect our hormones and chemistry. Each energy center also has its own cluster of neurons. Our attention and intention can influence and activate these neural networks. This is where meditation comes in.
The chakras correspond to developmental stages in our life, and this energy is meant to move upward, unimpeded. Our first three energy centers (root, sacral, and solar plexus) are concerned with our survival. These centers are energy consumers. They help us to meet our physical needs. If our survival is threatened or we are living in a state of stress for an extended period of time, we can find ourselves tapping too much energy from these centers. When this happens, the centers begin to draw energy from the biofield, or aura, surrounding our body and turn it into the chemistry of stress. This diminishes the strength of our energy field, and it results in a weakened signal sent to our cells, tissues, and organs. This can cause imbalances in the body that eventually leads to disease.
When Energy Gets Stuck
Energy medicine pioneer and practitioner, Donna Eden, who has been able to see these energy centers since she was a child and has spent her life studying them, teaches that our chakras imprint and record every emotionally significant event we have ever experienced. Each center has seven layers that spiral into the body with different layers holding different experiences at various stages of life. Eden says that "Each chakra holds a slice of your story" and is as "unique as a thumbprint." Our reactions to difficult events in our life can cause energy to get stuck in the energy center associated with that event. The Sanskrit term for this stuck energy is "samskara." Unprocessed samskaras scramble our energy centers and impede the flow of our energy. This incoherent energy can create imbalance in the body. When you realize what a big influence our hormones and neurotransmitters have over our health, and you know that each energy center is connected to a gland in the endocrine system, you can see that caring for our energy matters.
Ways to Care for Your Energy
Meditation, breath work, and therapy are all tools we can use to help us clear our samskaras and restore the free flow of our energy to and through our centers. Donna Eden teaches a simple, five-minute Daily Energy Routine that when done consistently, can help us to correct energy imbalances and get our energies humming. Click here to see a video of Donna demonstrating the routine. It is a compilation of the most effective energy practices she has used with herself and her clients over the years. I have used this routine to great effect on my own health for several years. To my surprise, I even found that I started seeing energy after practicing it for three months. An unexpected bonus!
If you feel sluggish, chances are the energies in your chakras are sluggish. Eden also teaches a simple method to clear and strengthen your chakras. It's like giving them a Roto-Rooter treatment. You can easily find a chart online showing the location of your chakras. You can work with all seven or focus just on the ones that feel out of balance. Shake off your hands and simply place the palm of one or both hands about four inches above your first chakra. Begin slowly making circles in a counterclockwise direction. (Imagine that there is a clock face on the chakra, faceup, to determine which direction is counterclockwise.) Make these circles about the width of your body. Your hands act like a magnet that pulls stagnant energy up and out. When you feel ready (three minutes is a good guide) shake off your hands again and begin to circle them in a clockwise direction. Do this for at least half as long as you circled in a counterclockwise direction. This strengthens the energy. Shake off your hands and move up to the next chakra. The more you work with your chakras, the more you activate healing at deeper and deeper levels. Clearing and strengthening your chakras frees up stuck energy and supports the protective aura around your body
Moving from Survival to Creation
Our energy centers emit light and color. Eden explains that these colors are not always the traditional colors associated with each chakra, but that green in any chakra usually signifies healing and more balance in it. So if our first three energy center support our survival, what is the purpose of the other four centers (heart, throat, third eye, and crown)? These centers are associated with our spirituality and creativity. In fact, researchers are finding increasing evidence that the heart is the center of our creative power. When our survival centers are activated by stress, our attention narrows and we marshal our inner resources to deal with the perceived threat. This is not a time to create. It's a time to run, fight, or hide. This is fine when we are under threat, but many of us live in states of stress long after the threat has passed. Our nervous systems were not designed for this.
In order for us to activate our upper centers, we need to restore balance and calm to our nervous system. One way we can do this is by consciously placing our attention on the space around our body. This is called divergent focus and it counteracts the stress response, which by nature, is a limited, or convergent, focus. This takes some practice as we are used to placing our attention on things we perceive with our five senses. One way to practice is by closing your eyes and sensing the space behind them. Then slowly expand your attention outward, as if you were inflating a giant beach ball around your head and upper body. Allow your attention to travel outward as far as you can, sensing (not visualizing) the space around your body. Rest here and breathe for a few minutes. This can be done anytime during the day when you feel you are under stress. It helps to place you in a calmer, more creative state where you can access a larger range of possibilities.
Caring for your energy is just as important as exercising, eating right, meditating, or taking your daily vitamin. Health issues tend to manifest in the architecture of our energy field before they appear in the body, so caring for your energy is a form of preventive health care and gives your body more vitality. If you want to learn more about your chakras, I recommend Donna Eden's book Energy Medicine: Balancing Your Body's Energies for Optimal Health, Joy, and Vitality and Becoming Supernatural: How Common People Are Doing the Uncommon by Dr. Joe Dispenza.