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Overview:
“I love”
Sanskrit name: Anahata
Color: green
Element: Air
Location: center of the chest
Characteristics: love, relationships, compassion, connections
Meaning Of The Heart Chakra
The heart chakra is the fourth of the seven chakras located in the middle of the chest.
It’s about aligning to a life that’s lived from the heart. Where we strive to build strong connections with the people around us.
But before that’s possible the heart chakra teaches us a lot about self-acceptance and trusting our own feelings. Having compassion for the emotional traumas we’ve been through and being able to forgive the situation is the underlying core of every connection we will ever commit to.
Healing The Heart Chakra
When the heart chakra is out of balance, we live life way more with the head than in alignment with our inner knowing. It’s hard to access deep-rooted feelings and life feels a little dull. Lifeless.
If we don’t even have full access to our own emotions like deep love and appreciation it’s even harder to have empathy and compassion for others.
It takes a lot to make us feel. Situations that break through the wall that’s around the heart are either incredibly sad moments or moments where we feel deep gratitude for something or someone.
Due to the lack of empathy, it’s harder to build meaningful connections and that could lead to self-isolation.
We can’t find the love we seek in others because we haven’t yet found the right way to show it to ourselves.
Often unforgiveness for past mistakes hardens our hearts and makes us feel like we don’t even deserve our own love.
Furthermore, childhood experiences come into play when it comes to closing the heart. Repeating painful situations experienced at a young age eventually leads to numbing the heart because it just can’t bear the pain anymore. As children, we didn’t have the resources to process strong negative emotions in a healthy way.
A simple survival coping mechanism is to withdraw and detach ourselves from what’s happening.
Later on, in adult life, it’s still difficult for us to share our deepest selves out of fear of rejection.
When we come across people who like us (on a surface level), we often get overly attached to them because they show us some love.
Although those connections aren’t always the healthiest, we tend to stick with them because we still get attention and think we don’t deserve better or find someone else who will love us for who we truly are.
Signs Of Imbalance
- Self-isolation
- Timid
- Trust issues
- Sad for a long time
- Overly jealous
- Hard time to forgive others and yourself
- Critical and judgmental of others and yourself
- Clingy/attaching yourself too much to another person
- Staying in abusive/toxic relationships/Co-dependency
- Afraid to get hurt in love – being closed off, pushing people away
- Manipulative behavior
- Lacking empathy
- Feeling drained around people close to you
Below, I’ve listed 9 ways to heal your heart chakra. Go with the themes that resonate with you the most.
The characteristics of a healed heart chakra are first of all that we’ve forgiven ourselves and others for mistakes we’ve/they’ve done along our journey. We came to realize that guilt and holding grudges don’t lead us back home to our heart space. All parties have acted from their highest consciousness at that time.
Everyone grows with their mistakes and learns how to better deal with challenges the next time. That’s just part of life.
The people around us may also went through a lot of pain which lead them to act out unhealthy patterns that have hurt us.
Living from the heart means looking beyond the initial pain and seeking for the underlying truth – forgiveness will set us free.
We’ve learned how to hold ourselves and how our hearts desire to receive love. Giving love to ourselves becomes intuitive and we only settle for relationships that make us feel as loved as we love ourselves already.
We know what’s best for us based on how connected we are with our hearts. This means we don’t just take facts and figures into account but also how the situation makes us feel deep down in our hearts.
We know that we don’t necessarily have to vibe with everyone. We love ourselves so much that we break free from people who treat us like we’re unlovable.
From that energy, we attract connections where no one tries to change someone and lets the other person BE and encourages them to fully express themselves. There’s no too much or not enough.
Signs Of Balance
- Having empathy for others
- Feeling compassion for others and yourself
- Easy to build connections with others
- Passionate about life
- Showing your emotions freely
- Not holding grudges
- Forgiving others and yourself
Affirmations
You can speak these affirmations whenever you feel unforgiving and overly critical in your daily life. Repeat them in your head or out loud if the situation allows.
- Every day I choose to see love within me
- Everywhere I look, I see love
- I view the world through the lens of love
- I accept everyone for who they are
- I accept myself
- I keep my heart open no matter what
- I have trust in myself
- I am lovable just as I am
- I allow myself to feel the pure energy of love in my heart
- I am compassionate with myself and others
- It’s easy for me to connect with other people
- I have the right to leave situations that aren’t in alignment with my core values
- I speak from my heart
- I live my life from my heart
Essential Oils
- Bergamot: reduces stress and negative thought about yourself and others, positive mindset, transforming negative emotions into positive ones
- Melissa: soothing emotional tension, especially used in long periods of stress
- Jasmine: improves the mood, feelings of support, feeling connected to the heart
- Lavender: calming for the whole being, reduces insomnia, creates a relaxing atmosphere
- Rose: access to love even in challenging times, healing trust issues, promotes self-love and acceptance
Journal Prompts
Journaling brings our deepest thoughts on paper and out of our heads. Take your time to answer the questions below to discover which heart chakra theme causes your imbalance and how you can change the situation for the better.
- Is it easy for me to receive love?
- Is it easy for me to express love?
- Do I let people around me know that I love them?
- In which ways do I express my love for others? How do I show my love?
- Do I give without expecting back?
- When making decisions do I act from my head or heart?
- How do I act when I meet new people? Do I open up easily or am I pretty distant at first?
- Do I tend to push people away when they try to get to know me better?
- How do I process challenging emotions?
- Are there people in my life I feel drained around? Are there ways to improve the connection?
- Are there relationships in my life I’d love to bring to a new level but am too afraid to do so?
Foods
A general saying is to eat the colors of the rainbow, which align with the colors of each chakra.
Fruit:
- Kiwi
- Lime
- Green apples
- pears
Vegetables:
- Green Pepper
- Celery
- Cucumbers
- Leafy greens
- Peas
- Asparagus
Sounds
Frequency: 639 Hz (Solfeggio)
Mantra: YAM
For Sound healing, you can use singing bowls holding the heart chakra frequency or chant the mantra YAM in your meditation practice.
There’re also quite a few videos on YouTube:
Visualization
Find a comfortable position. Close your eyes. Imagine a green light circle in the center of your chest.
With each breath you take the circle gets bigger and bigger and the green light becomes clearer and brighter.
Grow the circle with your breath until your whole chest area is filled with green radiant light.
Hold the circle for a couple of minutes and feel how its light is cleansing the energy in your heart chakra.
All blocked emotions are set free and flow freely out of you. Emotional imbalances get washed away by the strong green light you’ve created.
In addition, you could combine this visualization technique with chanting the mantra YAM, speaking the affirmations from above, or listening to the heart chakra frequency.
Repeat this practice whenever you feel drained and far away from others during your day.
Here you can find all the other chakras: Root Chakra, Sacral Chakra, Solar Plexus Chakra, Throat Chakra, Third Eye Chakra, Crown Chakra
Other Posts:
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How to use affirmations + 60 self-love affirmation ideas
Less talked about self-care habits for mind, body and soul
13 ways to include self care and spirituality in your evening routine
Finding moments of inner peace in tough times
Sun:
7 happiness rituals to add to your daily routine
14 fun self-care solo date ideas
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