Working with the Heart Chakra - Part 1

Now it's time to work on the heart chakra. If you haven’t read the base, sacral, or solar plexus chakra entries, you can find
the base chakra articles here: part 1 and part 2;
the sacral chakra articles here: part 1 and part 2;
and the solar plexus articles here: part 1 and part 2.

So far, we have worked with the lower three chakras - the base, sacral and solar plexus. These are the three chakras that mainly deal with our everyday activities - how we are, what we do and what and how we think. As I said in the last post, at the base, we found balance in nurturing our bodies, accepting ourselves, and finding safety and security in our lives. In the sacral chakra we worked on movement, action creativity and expanding out towards others, while maintaining healthy boundaries. And then in the solar plexus we found mental clarity, courage, confidence, new ideas and our will power.

In the heart we are at the center of the chakra system, with three above and three below. The three chakras above the heart deal with more abstract and spiritual elements of our experience in contrast to the worldly nature of the lower three, but the heart center is where we find our sense of self, belonging and peace. It is the point from which we can "look both ways" to the spiritual and to the physical.

The heart center is where we feel our emotions, particularly our ability to feel love, empathy, compassion and peace. It is the place in which we come to be at peace with ourselves, with the moment and with all that is. It is related to the energy of love, but not romantic love, so much as the kind of love we relate to the divine or the universe. It is the unconditional love and tough love of the truth. When we truly act in love, we do so not because we want personal gain, or because we want to please others - we do it simply because it is the right thing to do. True love is honest and open. One soul touches another and they see eachother down to the core of their being. It is the essence of "namaste" which means "I recognise the divine in you which is also in me". When we recognise the innate divinity of life, the pure soul being of each of us, even each animal, tree, stone, river or mountain, we cannot help but act in love. This is the energy of the heart chakra.

It allows us to feel "in love" with the world, with every moment, every opportunity and every challenge. We feel gratitude for all our experiences and lessons. We are filled with joy and inner peace. We have a sense of life being abundant with wonders, making us appreciate the simple things in life - our breath, our bodies, nature, simplicity, and companionship.

The heart chakra is our ability to feel love, compassion, and inner peace. It is to “LOVE”.

Overactive

If the heart chakra is overactive we may feel overwhelmed by all that we would like to see change in the world or in our relationships. Feelings of longing and yearning or hoping for what cannot be can cause an excess of emotional energy. One might become infatuated with someone who is unavailable, famous or unobtainable in some other way. They might be fanatical about a person, idea or cause. Or one might worry about all the wrongs of the world, or worry too much over the issues of others who may not want help or do not feel they need help. It's characterised by yearning, wanting, wishing and obsessing. When the heart chakra is overactive we need to realise our sphere of influence and be content and at peace with the positive change we CAN make, and not worry over that which we cannot. Those with empathic abilities (when we can psychically feel the emotions of others) may have an overactive heart chakra if they allow others emotions to affect them too deeply, not recognising what is theirs and what comes from outside.

Underactive

If the heart chakra is underactive there is a tendency to be emotionally negative, not wanting to engage with others, or with life in general. We may feel depressed, disinterested in others company or dismissive of others. We can feel like everyone is wrong or "out to get us". When our hearts our closed off we find it difficult to feel love, to enjoy the simple things in life, or to find things to be grateful for. Its different for everyone, but it can be caused by spending too much time alone, or away from nature. The world can seem dark, uninviting, boring, uninteresting and dull. It can also manifest as anger, frustration or discrimination towards others. To feel negative emotions without making emotional connections with others is a common trait. The feelings are unfounded in relationship. There is a need to move out of the self and open the heart to the world.

Balanced

When the heart chakra is balanced we feel love for ourselves, others and the world. We have compassion for others and do what we can to make the world a better place. We are at peace with what is and feel an abundance of joy at the simple pleasure of just being alive and able to experience this moment. We are drawn towards service to others, because it is the action of the love we feel, and the more we do it, the more love we feel. We feel deep soul connections with others and with the natural world. We have emotional intelligence and are aware of how our emotions affect us, allowing them to be, and feeling our way through them to a state of peace.

Questions to ask:

What am I grateful for?
Do I find it easy to feel love for others? Even others who have wronged me?
Do I feel content with the positive change I can create in the world?
Am I aware of how my emotions affect me?
Can I find my way to a state of peace in times of high emotion?

In the first base chakra blog there was an exercise for a meditation to assess the energy of your chakras. You might like to do this meditation again to check in with your progress.

My experience

I've been working through the chakras in my own life as we go along. For the heart chakra I have decided to do thirty days of gratitude on Instagram. I will be taking a photo each day of something I am grateful for as a daily meditation of gratitude. In the last three chakras I have worked on my health in my diet and taking up yoga everyday, and I've also started meditating and keeping a journal everyday too. This will be one more exercise to add on.

Driving in my car today through a beautiful bush area I couldn't help but feel how open and balanced my heart feels right now. I think that the opening comes quite easily when we have taken the time with the lower three to make our bodies healthy and vibrant, and our minds clear. It is like each of the chakras is a foundation we push on to get up to the next one and keeping them all healthy, from the bottom up is a great way to find balance and wholeness in every area of life.

I mentioned in the solar plexus entry that I had a technique I use for quelling my overactive solar plexus by "pushing" the energy into my heart chakra. I think this is something we can possibly do with every chakra, but I have experienced it most strongly in these two. When I have an overactive solar plexus, I sometimes feel like I need to control everything, including things that are well out of my control. It causes me to lose trust in others and to be judgemental and critical. When I feel this way I meditate on the energy of my solar plexus fueling the energy of my heart chakra, like letting one overflow into the other. As I do so, I begin to feel love and compassion for those I have judged and gratitude for all the good that they bring to my life. I find visualising the colours moving from one center to another in meditation works well. It seems to access my subconscious mind in a way I never could by just deciding to make a change.

In the next blog post I am going to talk about stones activities, and affirmations that relate to the heart chakra. In the meantime, you might like to have a look at the Pinterest board I have made for the heart chakra which has a lot of ideas.