The heart chakra, located in the centre of the chest, is the energy centre that’s all about how we give and receive love – to all people, not just our partners, and to ourselves.
People who have blockages in their heart chakra can be judgmental or they could be prone to jealousy. They might be unable to forgive someone or they might be grappling with grief.
As the fourth of the seven chakras, this is the meeting point of the energy centres that are associated with the physical world (the base, sacral and solar plexus chakras) and the three chakras representing the spiritual world (more on each of those in future posts). To get a bit airy-fairy, it’s where heaven and earth meet.
When the heart chakra is balanced, we’re compassionate, empathetic, peaceful, loving and able to help others without depleting our own resources (i.e. we don’t overcommit). We’re also able to honour our feelings, crying when we need to, but also administer self-care when we need it – that’s everything from drawing ourselves a bubble bath to simply speaking kindly to ourselves. We’re also able to receive love easily – we don’t say ‘no’ to people when they offer to help and we don’t put up barriers when people who we like get close to us.
What I think is so significant about the heart chakra is that while the solar plexus was all about shame, this chakra’s enemy is grief. If you think about it, it is loss of any sort (not just bereavement) that makes the heart hurt. Because self-love is so strongly emphasised in this chakra, this loss might be to do with your attachment to ideas about what your life should look like or who you thought you should have become.
Repressed emotions really come to the fore in this chakra – particularly for people who suffered deep hurts in childhood such as a death in the family, bullying or abandonment by a parent.
People with deficiencies in the heart chakra might be:
* anti-social
* lonely
* fearful of intimacy
* narcissistic
* judgmental (including racist, sexist, homophobic etc)
* lacking empathy
* unable to let go
* unable to forgive
* struggling to accept help from people
People with excessive energy in the heart chakra might be:
* co-dependent
* jealous
* demanding of their loved ones
* needing to be needed
* fearful of betrayal
Any issues with the arms can be related, too – and when I’m clearing this chakra in a reiki session people often report tingling in their hands. That’s because this chakra is all about touch – and that’s a key way we show love to people, right?
To clear blockages in the heart chakra, one suggestion I’ve heard is to try and go a week without criticising anyone, which will really help you examine how accepting you are.
· Remember that love is about giving AND receiving, so look at how you can increase the amount of love you’re giving out – that’s anything from smiling at people regularly to giving compliments and donating to people in need.
· If you’re into yoga, back bends, bridges and the wheel pose are great for targeting this chakra – and yoga also helps you to sit in the present moment, which is beneficial for your energy field as a whole.
If you’d like to work with me to heal any of the issues in this article, you can book energy healing sessions here. More information about how I work is available here.