Take heart. How to feel, give and receive more love

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.  

Ever had a bullying boss? Chances are, they had solar plexus chakra stuff going on

You know how people talk about having ‘fire in the belly’? That’s an indirect reference to the solar-plexus chakra, which is the energy centre concerned with personal power and control. This is an energy centre I’ve had constant blocks so I’m very familiar with it.

Symbolised by the element of fire, the solar plexus is the third chakra, sitting above the base and the sacral chakras. Located in the middle of your back and belly (just above the navel), it’s all about asserting your power without dominating other people, having will power and being comfortable with your place in the world.

People with blocks in the solar-plexus chakra might be doormats, or at the other end of the scale they could be bullies. They could be low in self-esteem or they could be workaholics.

If your energy in this chakra is balanced, you’ll be confident, flexible, self-disciplined, able to take responsibility for your actions and will have a good appreciation of your personal power (i.e. you don’t need to exert power over others to feel important). You’re just as happy to lead as to be led. You’ll also be warm and playful, because sense of humour is strongly connected to this energy centre (hence the saying ‘belly laughs’).

Even though chakras deal with esoteric energy, your physical energy is also at play in this chakra. If this chakra is balanced, you use your energy wisely – you don’t overextend yourself for long periods, and you don’t waste it on people who drain you.

While the base chakra was about fear and the sacral chakra was about guilt, the solar plexus’ enemy is shame.

(Image: the solar -plexus chakra symbol)

Essentially this chakra about owning your identity and being at peace with where you’re at in life – and it makes sense that that’s lacking in people who are bullies, workaholics or constantly angry.

People who are deficient in energy in the solar plexus chakra might display these characteristics:

· Low or no self-esteem

· Share no opinions, ever

· Avoid conflict at all costs

· Say yes to everything asked of them (hello, doormat!)

· Rely on other people’s validation to feel like they matter

· Passive approach to life (letting opportunities pass them by)

· Victim mentality

· Constant worry about what other people think of them

People with excessive energy in this chakra might have some of these things going on:

· Arrogance

· Constant need to have things their way (in the extreme: bullying)

· A need to be right and to have the last word

· Always having something to prove (typical of workaholics)

· Aggressive and prone to outbursts of anger

· Domineering and controlling

· Always criticising other people and very judgmental

· Perfectionism

· Always stressed out

Balancing this chakra comes back to instilling a healthy sense of self-esteem. If there’s something deep that’s proving an obstacle to healthy self-worth, seeking professional counsel could be helpful. Setting a goal and working towards it can help, as that requires you to back yourself and see yourself as worthy of success. If outbursts of anger are an issue for you, addressing the underlying issues could also be beneficial. Anger is a secondary emotion – it’s always masking a deeper problem, usually a fear of some sort. And of course, reiki is a brilliant way to clear blocks in any chakra.

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.  

What makes someone an inspiration? And is it really fair to call them that?

Has anyone else noticed how often the word ‘inspirational’ is used these days? On the TV show The Voice recently a contestant was described as an inspiration  – which he absolutely was – so many times that it started to sound a little trite. It got me thinking – what actually makes someone inspiring? And if that description is based on someone’s physical disability, as it was in this case, is that label helpful?  I have a very personal reason to be cautious about my use of the word ‘inspiration’.

But let me backtrack.

I know a lot of my readers are overseas, so I’ll explain first up that The Voice is number one in Australia’s ratings every night it airs, so please forgive me for this reality TV reference – everybody is talking about this show. A few weeks back, a wonderful man called Tim moved us all with his soaring, angelic (and I do not use that descriptor lightly) rendition of Nessun Dorma. But although the coaches did speak highly of his vocal prowess, what dominated their appraisals on that night and on his two subsequent performances was the word ‘inspirational’. You see, Tim is in a wheelchair, paralysed from the chest down. This means he cannot feel his diaphragm – a muscle singers need to control in order to perfect their sound. This truly makes him inspirational because he refused to give up on his dream of singing, and displayed remarkable tenacity to find a way to attain such vocal purity.

But here’s where I had an issue (and yes, I know I’m focusing on the wrong thing) – it felt like he didn't get the same treatment as other contestants. I can certainly understand why the coaches focused on his remarkable story initially, but as he progressed in the competition they didn’t give him anything constructive to work on, or spur him on to greater things as they did for other contestants (although I realise this may be due to TV editing). I can’t speak for Tim but I did wonder whether he might have preferred that his voice be judged on its own merit, as it was for the able-bodied contestants. He did comment that he was proud to have the opportunity to inspire people to pursue their dreams no matter what obstacles they face, so it’s clear that he was happy to be seen as inspirational. This is only my opinion, but I think he deserved to be portrayed on the show as a talented singer, not a singer in a wheelchair. I say this because many disabled people yearn for people to see beyond their disability. Their deepest desire is to be accepted for what they are (talented, valuable) rather than what they are not (able bodied).

My sister is disabled. Her physical challenges are complicated and largely diagnosable but to give you a very broad overview, she has skeletal deformities which have given her a noticeable hunchback and impaired her lung function. With just 17 per cent lung capacity she is constantly short of breath, can’t walk far (she has a wheelchair for long distances) and is chronically low on energy.  If you should ever meet her – you should; she’s rad! – I would strongly suggest you never tell her inspires you. She will get very, very cross with you.

And this is why. Although she deals with challenges that most of us do not, she does not see herself as lacking in any way. She does not wake up every morning and decide to be heroic, she simply gets up and gets on with her day, the same as you and I do. She is not a battler, not a role model, and not special. Like all of us, she is simply playing the hand she’s been dealt. As she puts it: “I am not an inspiration, I am just living my life.”

As a society we have been known to put the disabled on a pedestal instead of treating them as equals, and there’s something inherently patronising about that. A random older lady once told my sister: “It’s lovely to see you people out and about.” This makes my blood boil. Firstly, anyone who uses the phrase ‘you people’ to isolate a group of humans can fuck off back to Judgment Town. Secondly, anyone who derives personal satisfaction from bearing witness to my sister's grocery purchases is clearly living a very small life.

I love my sister with a fierceness that I had not known possible before her arrival, and I deeply admire her for her buoyant spirit, her emotional resilience, her commitment to fighting for social justice and her beautiful heart, among countless other things. But she is not an inspiration to me. Saddling her with the label ‘inspirational’ would highlight the ways she is different from me instead of giving her the space to simply be herself. No one should be defined by their weight, skin colour or any other element concerning their physical body. The body, after all, is just a home that your soul lives in.

We all want to be loved and accepted for who we are. And we all absolutely deserve that.

Maybe, instead of looking to other people for inspiration, we should be our own heroes. That’s what an inspiration is, right? It’s someone who motivates you to be better than you are today. Maybe you could go ahead and just be that person yourself. Pretty radical, hey?