As you move up the chakra system from Anahata to the fifth chakra, Vishuddha, you continue to move from the physical to subtle energies in the body. Here, your boundaries start to become blurry. You notice that you are part of something much bigger than being an individual. You feel more united than separate.
What is a Chakra?
A chakra is a subtle body energy center. In the physical body, they are bundles of nerve ganglia that connect to certain areas in your body. They are said to rule our behaviors and emotions. The word chakra means “wheel” or “disc”. There are many chakras in the body but there are seven main chakras. Six sit in front of the spine starting at the base up to the mid brain with the seventh above the crown of the head.
Chakras can get blocked due to childhood traumas, the belief systems you grew up in, as well as physical and emotional injuries. When a chakra is blocked, energy cannot flow properly in the body. When your energy can flow freely through the chakras, they can be used as a road map to reconnect with yourself and to the piece of the divine inside you.
Vishuddha Chakra
Vishuddha chakra is often referred to as the throat chakra due to its location around the shoulders, neck, and jaw. It is the narrowest part of the chakra system which can create a bottleneck for your energy to move up to chakras six and seven or move down through the fourth to the first. Energy moving up from the lowest to the highest is called the current of liberation. Energy flowing down is the current of manifestation. If your energy is not expressed out of the body, it gets stored as stress.
Activation of this energy center is said to happen between the ages of 8 and 12. The color associated with this chakra is sky blue or turquoise. The symbol for the throat chakra is a downward triangle that houses a white circle to represent the full moon.
Fifth Chakra Element
The element for the fifth chakra is space, the non-physical realm, or ether. Anodea Judith, an expert on the chakra system, associates ether with a field of vibration. Sounds are vibrations. She believes sound has the ability to harmonize frequencies within and around you.
“The (etheric) plane is the vibrating field of subtle matter that functions as both a cause and a result of our thoughts, emotions, and physical states.”
Anodea Judith
Vibrations exist in all forms of matter, energy, and consciousness. These vibrations in your body can be felt by others and can affect them. This goes both ways. Have you ever walked into a room feeling happy and optimistic and felt a low vibration of energy which made your energy move down toward a lower frequency? Or you meet someone, and you can’t quite put your finger on it, but something is a little off? You are feeling their energy communicating with you. Some energy you will be in harmony with and others you will feel the discord. The more you tap into your consciousness, the more you will notice the subtle energetic vibrations.
Speak Your Truth
Vishuddha means purification. To cleanse the toxins in your body, you need to speak truthfully and authentically. You will affect the throat chakra with lies and deception which can store repressed anger and silence. These can be lies and falsehoods you tell others and ones you tell yourself. The words you say have weight. They can lead to thinking you should not speak up for yourself or voice your opinion. They can even create stories that you believe to be true like you can never get what you want or things always happen to you and not for you. Many times, these are old stories that you perpetuate until you realize the truth.
Satya is Sanskirt for the truth or what is. Now, this doesn’t mean to speak the truth in such a way that it is unkind or malicious, but to be honest with loving kindness and good intention. Also, you get to decide who gets to hear your most authentic truths. It doesn’t have to be shared with everyone. In this throat chakra energy, you decide what you want to express out and to whom.
Attentive Listening
Hearing is the sense for this chakra. This is the other part of communication. Truly listening to what others have to say, free of your own judgements and without pretense. And not just listening to the words that come out but also hearing what their body is saying as they speak. What is their body language communicating to you?
Not only should you focus intently when listening to others but also on yourself. What is your body, intuition, and inner guidance system trying to communicate to you? You can practice this on your mat in asana, the physical act of yoga. Is your body craving a deeper stretch or is it yelling at you to back off a posture? What thoughts pop into your mind during meditation? This active listening helps you to remain present on and off the mat.
You can also listen for blockages within your body. These blockages can show up as tension and stress in a particular area. Slowing down and tuning into your intuition with your yoga practice can help you release the tension in this area. This will allow your energy to flow freely up and down through the chakras.
Communication Unites Us
When you listen and learn something new or read a book, you expand your knowledge. Then, you can pass on this knowledge as you speak to someone else. This communication can help unite people together. It can open yourself and others outside of our limiting properties of the mind and even our physical locations in the world. When you communicate with others, you can learn new perspectives. It can also bring us together as you listen and realize we are all not that different with our hopes, dreams, fears, and doubts.
Deficiency in Vishuddha Chakra
When you don’t express what you are feeling, it can lead to blockages and stagnation of your prana, life’s energy. This can be stored in your body and manifest into weight gain, tight muscles, or inflexibility. There may be tension in your shoulders and jaw. Your neck may also not be in proper alignment with your spine. Deficiency in this chakra, can impact your creativity and you become too precise or overregulated. You may not listen to yourself and others, have trouble speaking up for yourself, or speak too rapidly.
Excess in Vishuddha Chakra
Those who have excess energy in this chakra, speak too loudly, talk over people, and don’t listen. Excess can lead to gossiping and having a lack of consideration for others. It may lead to compulsive behaviors like overeating.
Balance in Vishuddha Chakra
When the fifth chakra is in balance, your mind and your body are in harmony. You attract people and situations that are in harmony with your vibrational frequency. You listen intently and speak authentically. Divine guidance is available to you because you are free of mind chatter, chitta. You live in contentment.
On the Mat or Meditation Pillow
There are several different ways to keep your energy moving through this chakra.
Mantra
Mantra means instrument of the mind. Using a mantra, creates a single point of focus and allows you to tap into a meditative state. It can help simplify and cleanse the mind. When you say a mantra internally or speak it aloud, it becomes an anchor for your practice free of your mind chatter. A slow, peaceful mantra is relaxing and calm. A fast mantra can generate energy and overcome inertia. For this chakra, you can use the bija mantra, Ham. Each chakra has a seed sound the goes along with it.
Asana
In asana, or the physical act of yoga, you want to open up the neck, shoulders, and jaw. Poses like bridge, fish, rabbit, shoulder stand, camel, thread the needle, and neck rolls and stretches are good to open up space in your body.
Sound
Making sounds can release stored unexpressed energy from your body. You can do it during asana or in meditation by making a moan or sound to help you release. Also, you can chant, say a mantra aloud during your practice, use lion’s breath or ujjayi breathing. Ujjayi breath draws awareness to your throat through constricting the throat slightly to get an audible sound.
Journaling
Journaling is a great way to express how you are feeling without being worried about what someone else may think about what you write. Make it for your eyes only and release judgment. Be as expressive and creative as you like. You can even rip it to shreds at the end to help release any anger or resentment.
If you found Chakra 5 interesting and would like to explore chakras 1-4, they are available here at my blog. You can also sign up for the Shifted Arrow Yoga and Wellness Newsletter to be the first to know when the latest blog is released and to receive a free weekly newsletter with free yoga meditations, and sequences.
Wishing you much love and health!
Carrie
Resources:
Judith, A. (1996). Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System As a Path to the Self.
Dale, C. (2021). Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Chakra: Your Definitive Source of Energy Center Knowledge for Health, Happiness, and Spiritual Evolution. Seventh Printing.
Judith, A. (2020). Chakra Yoga. Seventh Printing.
Judith, A. (2022). Wheels of Life. Llewellyn Worldwide.