You are more than your physical body. According to traditions dating back thousands of years, you also have an energy body—and within it, seven major energy centers called chakras.
These spinning wheels of energy influence everything from your sense of safety and belonging to your ability to love, speak truth, access intuition, and connect with the divine. When chakras are balanced, energy flows freely. When they are blocked or overactive, you may experience physical symptoms, emotional struggles, or spiritual disconnection.
Understanding your chakras is the first step toward energy awareness. Here is what each chakra governs, how to recognize imbalances, and when professional energy work is needed.
What Are Chakras?
The word "chakra" comes from Sanskrit, meaning "wheel" or "disk." In yogic tradition, chakras are points where energy channels (nadis) intersect, creating concentrated centers of life force energy (prana).
While traditions describe many chakras throughout the body, the seven main chakras run along the spine from its base to the crown of the head. Each corresponds to specific physical areas, emotional themes, and spiritual functions.
Think of your chakra system like a ladder of energy:
- Lower chakras (1-3) deal with physical, material, and ego-based concerns
- Heart chakra (4) bridges lower and upper, governing love and connection
- Upper chakras (5-7) deal with expression, intuition, and spiritual connection
When all seven are open and balanced, energy flows from root to crown, connecting you to both earth and spirit.
The Seven Main Chakras
1. Root Chakra (Muladhara)
Location: Base of the spine Color: Red Element: Earth
Governs: Survival, security, basic needs, grounding, connection to physical body and material world, sense of safety and belonging.
Physical associations: Legs, feet, bones, large intestine, adrenal glands.
When balanced: You feel safe, grounded, and secure. Basic needs feel handled. You are present in your body and connected to the physical world.
Signs of imbalance:
- Blocked: Anxiety, fear, insecurity, financial instability, feeling ungrounded or "floaty," chronic fatigue, lower body health issues
- Overactive: Greed, materialism, resistance to change, hoarding, aggression
Life areas affected: Career stability, home, finances, physical health, sense of belonging.
2. Sacral Chakra (Svadhisthana)
Location: Lower abdomen, below the navel Color: Orange Element: Water
Governs: Emotions, creativity, sexuality, pleasure, relationships, ability to feel and express, going with the flow.
Physical associations: Reproductive organs, bladder, kidneys, lower back.
When balanced: You feel creative and inspired. Emotions flow without overwhelming you. You experience healthy pleasure and intimacy. You adapt easily to change.
Signs of imbalance:
- Blocked: Emotional numbness, creative blocks, fear of pleasure or intimacy, guilt around sexuality, stiffness (emotional and physical), low libido
- Overactive: Emotional volatility, addiction to pleasure, unhealthy attachments, manipulation, drama-seeking
Life areas affected: Creativity, romantic relationships, emotional processing, sexuality, adaptability.
3. Solar Plexus Chakra (Manipura)
Location: Upper abdomen, stomach area Color: Yellow Element: Fire
Governs: Personal power, self-esteem, confidence, willpower, ability to take action, sense of self.
Physical associations: Digestive system, liver, pancreas, metabolism.
When balanced: You feel confident and capable. You know your worth without arrogance. You can set boundaries, make decisions, and take action toward your goals.
Signs of imbalance:
- Blocked: Low self-esteem, indecisiveness, feeling powerless or victimized, lack of direction, digestive issues, fatigue
- Overactive: Controlling behavior, aggression, need to dominate, workaholism, perfectionism, anger issues
Life areas affected: Career success, personal goals, self-image, boundaries, decision-making.
4. Heart Chakra (Anahata)
Location: Center of chest Color: Green (also pink) Element: Air
Governs: Love (giving and receiving), compassion, forgiveness, connection, emotional healing, bridge between physical and spiritual.
Physical associations: Heart, lungs, chest, arms, hands, thymus gland, immune system.
When balanced: You give and receive love freely. You feel compassion for yourself and others. Old wounds heal. You experience deep connection without losing yourself.
Signs of imbalance:
- Blocked: Difficulty giving or receiving love, fear of intimacy, isolation, holding grudges, lack of empathy, grief that will not shift, heart or lung issues
- Overactive: Codependency, poor boundaries, people-pleasing, jealousy, giving too much while neglecting self
Life areas affected: Relationships of all kinds, self-love, forgiveness, emotional healing, capacity for joy.
5. Throat Chakra (Vishuddha)
Location: Throat Color: Blue Element: Ether/Sound
Governs: Communication, self-expression, speaking truth, listening, authenticity, creative expression through voice and words.
Physical associations: Throat, neck, mouth, jaw, ears, thyroid.
When balanced: You communicate clearly and authentically. You speak your truth without aggression. You listen well. Creative expression flows easily.
Signs of imbalance:
- Blocked: Difficulty expressing yourself, fear of speaking up, secrets and lies, feeling unheard, sore throats, thyroid issues, jaw tension
- Overactive: Talking too much, not listening, gossiping, harsh or hurtful speech, dominating conversations
Life areas affected: Communication in relationships, public speaking, creative expression, authentic living.
6. Third Eye Chakra (Ajna)
Location: Forehead, between eyebrows Color: Indigo Element: Light
Governs: Intuition, insight, imagination, wisdom, ability to see the big picture, connection between mind and spiritual perception.
Physical associations: Eyes, brain, pituitary gland, neurological system.
When balanced: Your intuition is clear and trustworthy. You see beyond surface appearances. Imagination and insight work together. You understand symbolic and spiritual dimensions of experience.
Signs of imbalance:
- Blocked: Lack of intuition or distrust of inner knowing, difficulty seeing patterns, rigid thinking, poor memory, headaches, vision problems
- Overactive: Overthinking, nightmares, difficulty grounding, delusions, disconnection from physical reality, "living in your head"
Life areas affected: Decision-making, spiritual perception, learning, imagination, inner guidance.
7. Crown Chakra (Sahasrara)
Location: Top of head Color: Violet or white Element: Thought/Cosmic energy
Governs: Spiritual connection, divine wisdom, transcendence, unity consciousness, connection to something greater than self.
Physical associations: Brain, nervous system, pineal gland.
When balanced: You feel connected to the divine, however you conceive it. You experience moments of unity and transcendence. Life has meaning and purpose. Wisdom guides your path.
Signs of imbalance:
- Blocked: Spiritual disconnection, cynicism, meaninglessness, feeling alone in the universe, closed to anything beyond material reality
- Overactive: Spiritual bypassing, disconnection from body and earthly life, superiority, addiction to spiritual experiences, neglecting practical needs
Life areas affected: Spiritual practice, sense of meaning, connection to something greater, integration of spiritual and daily life.
Recognizing Your Patterns
As you read through the chakras, you likely recognized yourself in some descriptions more than others. Most people have one or two chakras that tend toward imbalance.
Notice:
- Which chakras felt most familiar when reading imbalance signs?
- Are there life areas where you consistently struggle?
- Do you have recurring physical symptoms in certain areas?
- Are your imbalances mostly "blocked" (deficient energy) or "overactive" (excess energy)?
These patterns often relate to life experiences. A childhood where you did not feel safe may create root chakra patterns. Relationships where you were not allowed to speak your truth may affect the throat chakra. Understanding the connection between your history and your energy patterns is valuable self-knowledge.
What You Can Explore Alone vs. With an Energy Healer
Explore on Your Own
Learning the system: Understanding what each chakra governs and recognizing which tend to be out of balance for you.
Self-assessment: Regular check-ins with your body and energy. Where do you feel open? Where do you feel stuck or tense?
Basic practices: Meditation focused on specific chakras, yoga poses that target certain energy centers, breathwork, spending time in nature, color visualization.
Lifestyle adjustments: Noticing how diet, sleep, relationships, and environment affect your energy. Making changes that support balance.
Journaling: Tracking how you feel energetically over time and what seems to help or hinder.
Work With a Professional Energy Healer
Actually moving energy: While you can learn about chakras intellectually and do supportive practices, actually clearing blockages, releasing stored trauma, and rebalancing the energy body is skilled work. Energy healers train extensively in techniques that shift energy in ways self-practice cannot easily achieve.
Seeing what you cannot see: An experienced healer can perceive your energy field, identify where blockages exist, and often see their origins—information your conscious mind may not have access to.
Deep-seated blockages: Some patterns are too entrenched to shift with self-work alone. Trauma stored in the energy body often requires skilled facilitation to release safely.
Guidance and interpretation: Understanding what a blockage means, where it came from, and how to prevent it from returning requires experience with many clients and patterns.
Specific health concerns: While energy healing is not a substitute for medical care, it can be a powerful complement. Significant physical or mental health issues benefit from professional energetic support.
Accelerating progress: What might take years of self-practice can sometimes shift in sessions with a skilled healer. If you are serious about energy work, professional support accelerates your journey.
Learning to feel energy: Healers can help you develop your own energy perception, teaching you to sense what you currently miss.
Types of Energy Healing
Different modalities work with chakras and energy in different ways:
Reiki: Universal life force energy channeled through the practitioner's hands to clear and balance the recipient's energy field.
Pranic healing: Working with prana (life energy) to cleanse and energize the chakras and aura.
Chakra balancing: Specifically focused on assessing and rebalancing the seven main chakras.
Crystal healing: Using the vibrational properties of crystals to influence energy centers.
Sound healing: Using frequencies, singing bowls, tuning forks, or voice to shift energetic patterns.
Acupuncture/Acupressure: Working with the meridian system (related to but distinct from chakras) to move energy.
Each modality has its strengths. Many healers combine multiple approaches. What matters most is finding a practitioner whose approach resonates with you.
Your Energy Journey
Your chakras are not fixed—they respond to life experiences, your thoughts and emotions, your practices, and the energy work you receive. Understanding them gives you a framework for recognizing what is happening in your life and energy.
SpiriVerse Personal Space includes a chakra check-in tool where you can regularly assess how each energy center feels and track patterns over time. Building awareness is the foundation of energy work.
When you are ready to go deeper—to actually clear blockages, release stored patterns, and experience the shift that comes from professional energy work—connect with an energy healer on SpiriVerse who can help you move from understanding to transformation.
Ready to check in with your energy? Create your free Personal Space to start tracking your chakras, then find an energy healer on SpiriVerse when you are ready for hands-on healing work.
