Ever felt intrigued about your energetical body? According to ancient Indian wisdom, our bodies contain seven energetical centers that are spaced from the root to the crown of the spine. They’re called ‘chakras’, a term that comes from Sanskrit and means ‘wheel’ or ‘disk’. The heart chakra is the fourth such energetical wheel and connects deeply to our individual capacity to love, be compassionate, and be balanced emotionally. In addition, heart chakra healing is essential to attain optimal well-being.
This article will explore the topic of heart chakra healing; what the heart chakra is responsible for, what happens when it is blocked, and how to go about rebalancing and healing this energy center. Ready to learn more about the heart chakra and how you can nourish it? Read on.
What is the Heart Chakra? Meaning and Symbol
The chakras are full of symbolism. From imagery and colors to the Sanskrit terminology, let’s examine the meanings behind the heart chakra icons and words.
The heart chakra is otherwise known as the Anahata chakra, which in the Sanskrit means ‘unstruck’ or ‘unhurt’. This symbolizes the concept of eternal, pure love that exists within each of us. It is apart from pain and hurt and resides deeply in our energetical body.
Every one of the seven chakras has a symbol that may teach us about their meaning. The heart chakra symbol is a green lotus flower with twelve petals that represents the balance of giving and receiving as well as of male and female energy – featured by an interlaced triangle symbol. Every chakra has a color; the heart chakra color is green which is connected with growth, healing, and renewal.
Furthermore, the heart chakra is connected to the air element, which corresponds to freedom, lightness, and the capacity to flow with the turns of life. The heart chakra is found between the chest and lungs, a vital place for the spreading Prana (life force) around the body.
We will touch more on affirmations later, but one heart chakra affirmation that sums up its meaning beautifully is ‘I am open to love’.
Symptoms of a Blocked Heart Chakra
When any of our chakras are blocked, we often start to feel the impact physically and emotionally. For example, a blocked heart chakra can manifest physically through chest pain, problems with breathing or circulation, heart palpitations, and sometimes neck and shoulder pain.
Emotionally, a blocked heart chakra can manifest in many ways. Some common symptoms include feelings of loneliness, jealousy, fear, lack of trust, and difficulty forming deep relationships. It can also lead to feeling emotionally numb, where rather than intense emotions you suffer with dampened feelings.
From this comes the concept of underactive and hyperactive chakras. Our heart chakra can be blocked as well as in a condition of overactivity or underactivity, which generates different results. An underactive heart chakra, for instance, can make it much more difficult to give or accept love; an overactive heart chakra can cause you to be easily envious or possessive.
What then happens when you begin to mend your heart chakra and it opens? You might feel more emotionally available, more able to connect with people, and more empathetic to yourself and those closest to you.
How to Unblock the Heart Chakra
You can experiment with several techniques to balance your heart chakra, heal it, and maximize the energy center. Here are some of our favorite ways to go about it.
Heart Chakra Healing Crystals
Crystals are powerful tools of energy. The different stones often correspond to different chakras. For the Anahata chakra, there are a few key crystals that are great to have on hand.
- Rose quartz: the stone of unconditional love. Helps to heal heartache and promote self-love and forgiveness
- Green aventurine: the stone of opportunity. Foster’s emotional recovery helps open the heart to new love and relationships
- Jade: the stone of harmony. Encourages peace and emotional release
- Rhodonite: the stone of balance. Supports emotional balance and develops feelings of compassion
- Malachite: the stone of protection. Protects against negative energies while helping to clear past trauma
You might use your crystals as an altar during meditation, or hold them close to your chest. You could wear them as jewelry or simply carry them in your pocket for your own protection.
Affirmations and Meditation to Open the Heart Chakra
Many of us find that visualizing and believing affirmations can enhance our lives in a positive way. Repeating affirmations over time helps your subconscious beliefs to be changed from negative to positive ones.
Here are a few ideas for heart chakra healing affirmations:
- “I am worthy of love.”
- “I forgive myself and others.”
- “I love and accept myself unconditionally.”
- “My heart is open to love and compassion.”
Meditation is another powerful tool to unblock, heal, balance, and open the heart chakra. Here is a very simple guided meditation you can try to visualize and focus on this energy center:
- Sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes, and take a few deep breaths.
- Visualize a glowing green light emanating from your chest, expanding with each breath.
- As you breathe in, imagine love and compassion filling your heart; as you breathe out, release any tension or emotional pain.
- Focus on the affirmation, “I am open to love.”
Heart Chakra Healing Yoga: Poses for Healing and Balance
Yoga Asanas (postures) can powerfully influence our chakras. When we stimulate these areas of the body, we can melt away tension and move energy around the body in a targeted way. Physically opening the heart space through these Asanas has the potential to reach deeply into the energy center.
Try to include these poses in your next yoga practice, being mindful of your heart chakra:
- Camel Pose (Ustrasana): Stretches the chest, deeply opens the heart, and releases stored tension.
- Cobra Pose (Bhujangasana): Opens the heart and energizes the body, encouraging the lungs to open and fill with Prana.
- Bridge Pose (Setu Bandhasana): A gentle backbend that opens the chest and strengthens the spine safely as well as inverts the energy of the body.
- Cow Face Pose (Gomukhasana): Releases tension and stretches the chest, shoulders, and heart space.
- Upward Plank Pose (Purvottanasana): Opens the chest while activating the heart chakra and stretching the heart space and shoulders.
In order to fully enjoy the benefits of these Asanas, you should combine deep, conscious breathing with the poses and focus inwards. This will serve to deepen the heart-opening impact of the postures and make the practice much more well-rounded. Also, you could chant the mantra ‘YAM’ which is the Anahata chakra’s seed sound, also known as the bija mantra. Try changing it a few times to open your practice and connect to the chakra.
Heart Chakra Solfeggio Frequency: Sound Therapy for Aura and Love
Solfeggio frequencies are sound patterns that help to balance energy and harmonize the mind, body, and spirit. Different frequencies are used for different purposes and link to different elements of the energetical body. 639 Hz is specifically linked to harmonizing relationships and emotional healing, so it is useful when we are focusing on heart chakra healing.
Listening to this music, which you can find on all streaming platforms, can help to clear emotional blockages and balance the heart chakra. The 639 Hz frequency is linked to aura love, the energetic field that surrounds the body, therefore helping you to share and attract love and compassion.
You might combine this sound therapy with other methods, such as your affirmations, meditation or asana practice to create a fully holistic experience.
How to Heal Emotional Blockages Through Energy Work
More broadly, there are plenty of techniques that can help to balance your energy centers. They can also be adopted particularly in relation to the Anahata chakra. Here are some ideas:
- Reiki: Used to clear emotional blockages by channeling universal life energy into the chakras.
- Acupuncture: Helps to unblock stagnant energy in the chakras, promoting emotional and physical healing.
- Qi Gong and Tai Chi: Ancient energy practices that balance the flow of energy through the chakras.
- Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT): EFT tapping can be applied to the chakras to release emotional trauma.
10 Heart Chakra Healing Benefits
1. Harmony of Emotions
Heart chakra healing promotes calmness, tranquility, and balance, and helps regulate your emotions. It makes room for a sense of peace by helping reduce extreme sadness, worry, or anger.
2. Stronger Connections
A balanced heart chakra helps you to connect with people through compassion and love. It builds closer, better, and more significant bonds with friends, relatives, and love partners.
3. More Self-love
Healing the heart chakra promotes self-acceptance and compassion. For your general well-being and pleasure, it is essential to let go of negative self-judgments and embrace and accept of yourself totally.
4. Letting Go and Forgiveness
Forgiving others and yourself will come naturally when your heart chakra is healed and balanced. It helps to release emotional pain, resentment, or past trauma therefore freeing up energy for growth and positive experiences.
5. More Compassion and Understanding
Healing this chakra can help you to develop more empathy for other people and a better understanding. It improves your capacity to show love, support, and kindness free from conditions, therefore improving your relationships.
6. Physical Health
Physically, the heart chakra is connected to the lungs, circulatory system, and heart itself. Heart chakra healing can support general cardiovascular health and assist in lowering stress-related problems including high blood pressure.
7. More Gratitude
A healed heart chakra helps you appreciate the people around you and the things you own. This kind of appreciation will help you to see life differently and boost your general state of well-being.
8. Openness to Love
A balanced heart chakra allows you to be loving to others and receive love equally. Healing this chakra helps you to experience love more easily and without anxiety, in friendships or romantic relationships.
9. Emotional Strength
Healing the heart chakra improves your capacity for handling emotional obstacles. It helps you recover from trying circumstances with more inner strength and emotional resilience.
10. Spiritual Development
Between the physical and spiritual worlds lies the heart chakra, the link. Healing this chakra can help you to feel closer to your higher self, spiritual activities, and universal love.
Heart Chakra Healing for Emotional Balance and Love
So, the heart chakra plays a key role in our emotional health and how we form relationships and bonds. Whether its by using crystals, meditation, sound healing or movement, we can work to unblock and heal this energy center. By doing so, we start to create deeper compassion and emotional well-being.
Try incorporating some of these healing practices into your routine, and you might notice that your heart chakra starts to heal, open, and flourish. Returning to the methods consistently will make them all the more powerful, as well as mix and match them for a holistic approach.
Stay tuned for our upcoming blogs in this series, where we will uncover all of the other chakras and how to go about balancing, healing, and nurturing them. For now, check out our previous piece on chakras, How to Spot and Heal Blocked Chakras: Signs and Simple Solutions.
References
Body Soul Yoga. “The Air Element and Yoga.” Body Soul Yoga, https://bodysoulyoga.co.uk/the-air-element-and-yoga/. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024
“Anahata.” Yogapedia, https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/5525/anahata. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
“Solfeggio Frequencies.” Meinl Sonic Energy, https://meinlsonicenergy.com/en/topics/Solfeggio-Frequencies. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
Holistic Rebecca. “YAM Chanting for Heart Chakra Balancing and Inner Peace.” Insight Timer, https://insighttimer.com/holisticrebecca/guided-meditations/yam-chanting-for-heart-chakra-balancing-and-inner-peace. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
“Tiny Rituals: Chakra Crystals.” Tiny Rituals, https://tinyrituals.co/blogs/tiny-rituals/chakra-crystals. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
“Heart Chakra Symbol.” 7 Chakra Store, https://7chakrastore.com/blogs/news/heart-chakra-symbol. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
Collins, Natalie Butler. “EFT Tapping: Techniques, Benefits, and More.” Healthline, 13 May 2022, https://www.healthline.com/health/eft-tapping. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
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