Hello everyone! This week we move onto our next chakra that marks the half-way point of our chakra journey.

Today I will introduce you to the heart chakra, otherwise known as Anahata. The name Anahata comes from the meaning of “unhurt, unstruck, and unbeaten” as it protects our heart. Overall, the heart chakra is associated with unconditional love, forgiveness, passion, and joy. Anahata is also a very important chakra in that it connects the upper and lower chakras together with it being in the center of our bodies. It is also connected to the color green to represent energy and transformation as our heart chakra allows us to naturally flow from one situation, relationship, or experience to the next with the proper adjustment of feeling.

While the heart chakra is a very important component of the entire chakra system, there are some major symptoms and signs of a blocked heart chakra that has the ability to throw everything off. Some signs of a blocked Anahata are: loneliness, the feeling of isolation, holding grudges, jealousy, being overly defensive, and difficulty in trusting others.

Although it may sound easy to have a blocked heart chakra, similar to the others, there are practices that help to clear these signs and put your life back in balance in terms of Anahata.

Currently, the use of crystals is becoming a more widely used and accepted practice in society. Using rose quartz in your life is linked to opening the heart chakra, along with some other heart chakra related crystals.

Another simple practice to keep the heart chakra open and aligned is through the use of a daily gratitude journal. This allows the energy to flow from the heart chakra to paper when recalling various things that you are grateful for. In addition to this practice, drinking beverages like rose tea and cacao are linked to opening the heart chakra. Furthermore, even drinking and eating green foods are fuel for the heart chakra. These foods include green tea, green vegetables, spinach, and kale.

Unlike the other chakras, while yoga can be practiced to clear the Anahata in a practice where a pose is selected to meditate in, the heart chakra becomes open through the practice of self-love. Aside from a gratitude journal, the heart chakra strives off of taking time to appreciate oneself. Devotion is also a large part of clearing the heart chakra, since it can evoke deep feelings and expression.

Ultimately, the heart chakra is an essential chakra to the entire system, but it is unique in that the methods to reset and open Anahata is completely different than the others. While this is true, I know that sometimes meditation videos are easy and quick when you want to practice chakras but do not have much time. For this reason I still am going to share some video practices for the heart chakra.

Recently, I introduced that music and sounds are associated with chakras. The heart chakra while it does not have a specific sound, there are certain musical notes that send an internal message to open the heart.

Aside from sounds, all chakras have yoga practices that enhance the movement of opening specific chakras. For the heart chakra there are a few poses that can help stretch the body to release the bad energy of Anahata.

Along with the yoga practice, I have my own experience doing chakra yoga. One thing that stood out and helped me release my heart chakra even more was performing the practice under green light to match the color that the chakra is associated with. Within this experience, there was also diffusers releasing scents into the air and sounds/music that made the grounding of myself even more intense.

Out of all the chakras, for a beginner I believe that the heart chakra is a great one to start on when wanting to get into the practice. As mentioned above, the heart chakra does not necessarily take that much outside practice, but rather more personal practice. I think with how society is today in that stress is so high, practicing the heart chakra is a special experience in that all it takes it being grateful to yourself and making devotions to do better for you.

Sources:
https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/chakras-yoga-for-beginners/intro-heart-chakra-anahata/

https://www.artofliving.org/us-en/blog/heart-chakra-fourth-anahata