The Chakra of Love and Compassion
The heart chakra is the 4th chakra of the 7 chakras. Its original sanskrit name is Anahata and it fills our lives with love, compassion, and beauty. It is also referred to as the love chakra.
It is driven and guided by the principles of integration and transformation. Many people refer to it as the bridge between our earthly and spiritual aspirations.
Location of the Heart Chakra
The heart chakra is located in the center of your chest between the breasts and it begins from the spine area.
It should not be confused to mean that it is in the actual heart because of its name.
The name comes from the fact that it is closer to the right side of the chest area near the heart.
Chakras begin from the bottom coming up and it is the 4th one.
Due to its location, it is associated with the cardiac system together with the lungs which controls our breathing.
These 2 organs depend on each other for breathing and pumping blood through the body system.
This is symbolic of this chakra because it is associated with love with is the main driving force of human beings in the universe. Love is at the heart of human interaction.
Keep in mind that this chakra is multidimensional and usually represented with its front going through the chest and its back moving through the spine all between blades on a shoulder.
The depiction is an artistic symbol with a deep meaning.
Symbol
The symbols that represent this chakra are:
- Twelve petals in a circle. The 12 petals are often in red which is a dominant color.
- Downward pointing triangle that is joined by an upward-looking one thus making a hexagram.
Roles that the heart chakra plays in our lives
1.
The ability to Love
Love is a beautiful thing. It runs the world and it is often depicted with actions such as compassion, empathy, trust, and several other ways.
Human beings are bonded together by love and that is what causes them to live harmoniously with each other. This chakra is at the center of the human being’s ability to love one another and also to love things such as pets.
2.
Integrates our earthly and spiritual Aspirations
As human beings, we have aspirations here on earth and in our heavenly realms where our souls exist and where we shall spend our time in the afterlife which is after death in the physical world.
The two worlds need to be interconnected so that we may have a chance to live happily in the spiritual world.
With love, we are able to connect the 2 worlds because love makes us have good deeds in the physical world which work to our advantage when we move to the spiritual world.
3.
Limiting the ego and uplifting personal identity
Our egos can get the better of us to the point where we become proud, arrogant and unappreciative.
This chakra helps us to transcend our personal identity and see beyond the current times and go against what our ego is telling us.
It cultivates the culture of humility in us and helps us connect with everyone in the society. The ego can come in our way of achieving happiness in the afterlife.
This chakra enables us to express unconditional love which is love to everyone even those who cannot be able to show love to us.
This is love that knows no boundaries and we are able to express even to strangers and those who hate us.
Expressing unconditional love is not a natural thing for human beings.
We tend to be selfish and only express love whenever we know we can get it back from the person we are showing love to.
For us to go beyond ourselves, this chakra helps us in this by making us love everyone unconditionally.
Discernment from and the Heart Chakra
The art of discernment keeps us away from people and things that have been sent by the evil spirits to harm us.
Through discernment, we are able to tell which decisions to make and which people to interact with thus avoiding evil that has been sent to cause afflictions in our lives.
This chakra gives us discernment from our hearts.
Everything in the universe has its beauty but we can only see it if our love chakra is working in us and has not been blocked or unstable.
It is very important for us to appreciate the beauty of all our surroundings. Once we are able to have this appreciation, we lead more fulfilling and happy lives because we see the best in everything.
We have no time for negative energy because even when misfortunes occur we are able to see their bright side and understand their temporal nature.
Heart Chakra And Relationships
In life, having deep and meaningful relationships is such an awesome thing. It enables us to love, trust and count on those that we love and cherish.
This chakra is very instrumental in helping us achieve this level of intimacy.
We experience maturity in our interactions and relations with everyone who we are related to be it through family, friends or even lovers.
When the Heart Chakra is out of balance
Life experiences that have a strong emotional charge on us such as physical diseases, break ups, death of loved ones can cause the heart chakra to become imbalanced.
The manifestation of a blocked love chakra is a tendency to be overactive with excess energy even in situations that require you to be calm.
5 Signs the Heart Chakra is Imbalanced
01 Inability To Forgive
You hold grudges for a long time and keep reminding those who wronged you about their mistakes and why they made mistakes against you.
02 Doubting yourself
This is self-doubt about your abilities, talents, and capabilities.
03 Overpleasing Others
Trying to please everyone even those that you do not know about including strangers. When they are not pleased as you expect, you feel low and sad.
04 Jealousy
This happens when you envy other people’s success and good tidings in their life and wishing you were the one experiencing the great fortunes.
05 Fear of getting intimate
You think that being intimate will cause you sadness and you are unable to fully give your heart to someone.
On the physical level, lack of balance may be manifested by respiratory infections, fatigue, and general boredom.
It then moves to reduce your productivity at work and lack of psyche to pursue your dreams and goals. You become negative energy among your friends, colleagues, and family and people might start avoiding you because of the energy bring to them.
When this happens, you should not worry too much because there are ways to correct this so long as you have become aware of the blockage.
The most important thing is having that awareness. You can take corrective steps to take yourself back to your normal life.
Open And Balance The Heart Chakra
Keep in mind that the blockage may keep happening in your life and from time to time you will experience bouts of such moments and the most important thing is to learn how to unblock it.
Below are some of the ways that you can practice to unblock the love chakra.
5 Ways to Heal the Heart Chakra
1. Appreciation of beauty
You should learn to appreciate your beauty, beauty of nature and of the arts.
This appreciation will help you remember that there is always beauty in every creation of the universe. You will hence keep yourself in good spirits even when afflicted with negative energy.
2. Learn to practice self-care
This entails showing love to yourself and everything about yourself.
Before you are able to love or care for anything else you must start with yourself.
You can occasionally take yourself on a treat, buy yourself nice things like flowers, gloom yourself, take good care of your body and make yourself look good.
3. Accept yourself and practice self-compassion
When it comes to your emotions and your body you should learn to accept yourself as you are and be content with your physical looks as that is how the universe made it to be.
Show compassion to yourself and do not push yourself too much when you make mistakes.
4. Be reflective
Learn how to reflect on all events that happen in your life be it old wounds, strained relationships, broken trust and learn to forgive and let go.
Baggage from the past causes a lot of disharmony in our love for others and for things.
Therefore, look back and close up all the unresolved issues of the past and carry on from there with love and vigor.
5. Be Thankful
Be grateful for all the things that are in your life. Even the most basic ones such as breathing, eating, sleeping.
Once you start being thankful you will start realizing that you have so much in abundance and this will slowly uplift you from the blocked chakra.
Learn More About Chakras
You can read our introduction to all seven chakras by clicking here, or choosing the specific chakra you’d like to understand better below.
You can also use affirmations to heal the heart chakra.
Here are seven crystals you can use to work with the heart chakra.
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