As I’ve explained in previous videos, at the most basic level, your body is made up of energy. That energy organizes itself into the physical body. But before that energy organizes itself into physical body parts, it organizes itself into meridians and chakras. These chakras are centers of energy that lie along energy channels and each one holds a very specific vibration and has a specific purpose. Each chakra is a specific expression of Prana (otherwise known as life force or source energy). The chakras look a bit like funnels of energy or vortices. They both absorb and emit energy.
When a chakra is out of alignment, meaning it is not letting life force in or is out of alignment for any number of reasons, it starts to affect your equilibrium. It becomes a serious imbalance within the system. When chakras are out of alignment, they appear small and do not absorb or emit much energy. They also change in their color, patterning, texture and sound.
The traditional name for the throat chakra is Vishuddha. The center of this chakra corresponds directly to the hallow in the base of your throat, where your collarbones almost meet. These chakras do not correspond to your front, but also the back of your body. If you take your hand behind your neck, and bend your head backwards, the center of your throat chakra on the backside of your body is higher up on your neck, right where your neck indents when you bend your head backwards. The throat chakra is the chakra of purity. It is also the center of purification. This is why so many of the physical systems that it is associated with, deal with toxicity in the body. It is the chakra that governs the lymph system. It also governs the throat, pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid, ears, nose, jaw, neck (cervical spine), mouth, tongue and shoulders. When the throat chakra is out of alignment, you will see problems develop in these aspects of the body. On an emotional level, you may feel social anxiety, like you’ve lost faith, shyness, ashamed, toxic or poisoned, desperate, like you are drowning or choking. You may feel inhibited, like you cannot express yourself, like you are not inspired to create, paralyzed, terrified to speak, like you are bursting from the inside out, like a pressure cooker, like you are holding back.
The throat chakra is associated with the color blue. It is considered the fifth main chakra in the human system and it is associated with the element called Ether. For those of you who are science fiction nerds and The Fifth Element, you now know some meaning behind the concept of Leeloo. In the movie, she was the embodiment of Ether, the fifth element. Why? Because Ether, like the throat chakra which is associated with it, is about purity and truth. Purity and truth are like twins vibrationally. They both involve the removal of contaminates.
The throat chakra is about the discovery of your individual purity and your individual truth and then the expression of that truth and purity which you find. For the throat chakra to be in a state of health, you must not only accept but own your originality and speak your truth according to that originality. The throat chakra governs the seeking and sharing of truth. It relies on inspiration. It is also the chakra that governs listening, communication, personal integrity and personal honor.
What causes the throat chakra to go out of alignment? First and foremost, not thinking or speaking or taking action that reflects your authentic inner truth. Second, others not seeing or acknowledging your personal truth and treating it as valid. This especially includes not being listened to and not being heard. Complaining and gossiping causes the throat chakra to go out of alignment because in complaining, one recognizes that it is unhappy about something, but takes no direct action to create improvement. Contradiction and negative thinking, especially doubt is a strong antagonist for the throat chakra. Doing things because you have to instead of because you want to is as well. If you do something which is dishonest or in contradiction to your conscience, your throat chakra will reflect that immediately. Negativity, especially in the form of negative thinking especially pulls the throat chakra out of alignment. This is because negativity is like toxicity. If it is pervasive enough, the body cannot filter that toxicity in order to purify itself.
Knowing all that, here is what you can do to open your throat chakra and bring it into alignment:
1. First, you need to become aware of what is preventing the chakra from being in alignment. If there were not something preventing it from being healthy, it naturally would be. So close your eyes and get clear about how you are out of alignment with your personal authenticity, purity, truth or integrity. You can do this by asking questions and seeing what answers arise. Ask yourself, what is poisoning me? How am I poisoning myself? What is keeping me from being able to be myself? Why can’t I speak? Who isn’t hearing me? What am I not hearing? What would be scary about knowing or hearing or admitting to the truth? What would be scary about being original? What is preventing me from communicating? How am I not speaking and acting in accordance with my personal integrity and conscience? Why am I not feeling inspired to create?
2. Do an intuitive exercise to understand the state of your throat chakra. To do this, close your eyes and try to sense or see or feel the throat chakra. If you cannot, feel or see or sense your throat itself. Imagine that it was its own separate being living within you. What color do you perceive it to have? Does it have any texture? Do you see any images associated with it? Begin to question it to understand what you are seeing. What does it tell you? What can you do to improve its current state? For example, I may see a dark cave that is frozen. That may tell me that I feel emptiness there. I may then ask myself mentally, what is this cave empty of? Or what does this cave represent? I may then imagine offering it something that I feel it needs. Like I may imagine sitting myself down inside it and giving it my company. I may see it melting ever so slowly by shining light on its walls.
3. The throat charka is the chakra most related to sound. For this reason, sound healing is particularly capable of opening the throat chakra. Sing! Sing along to songs, sing in the shower, chant, listen to throat chakra singing bowls and frequency music, tone, hum. Ham and Hum are the sounds that activates the throat chakra. Typically Ham for higher chakra areas like jaw and mouth and Hum for lower chakra areas like the lower throat and larynx and shoulders. Close your eyes and play around with the pitch of that sound and take it up and down until you find the note or multiple notes that causes you to feel the most relief in that center. Sometimes, good old fashioned screaming, even if it is into a pillow, is what is needed to unblock this chakra.
4. Incorporate the color blue into your life. Wear things that are this color, paint walls in your house this color, do art with this color, close your eyes and imagine flooding your entire body with this color.
5. Do yoga poses which open the throat chakra. In my opinion, some of the best are as simple neck rolls, seated cat cow and fish pose. Also, try breathing techniques in association with these poses my favorite are the alternate nostril breathing technique, the ujjayi pranayama breath and lion’s breath.
6. Use stones that correspond to the throat chakra. Rather ironically, most of them are blue. In my opinion, the best stones for opening the throat chakra are, Turquoise, Blue Lace Agate, Danburite, Sodalite, Blue Topaz, Aqua Aura, Apatite, Amazonite, Celestite, Aqua Marine, Lapis, Azurite, Kyanite and Chrysocolla. This being said, deliberately letting yourself choose a stone according to what intuitively calls out to you when you set the intention of choosing a mineral to assist your throat chakra, is always more powerful than walking into a shop and buying one of these stones because I told you this type of stone in general was good.
7. Use plant beings to assist in the opening of your throat chakra. This can be in the form of teas, sachets, incense, essential oils or any other form you want to use them in. In my opinion, the plants that are the very best for opening the throat chakra are: Eucalyptus, Coriander, Fenugreek, Borage, Peppermint, Red clover, Lemon Balm, Betony (also known as bishopswort) Onion, Ipheion uniflorum, Lobelia, Elder (especially the berries of this plant), Echinacea and Frankincense. Herbs associated with the planet mercury are also good for the throat chakra.
8. As far as Numerology is concerned, 16 is the number associated with the throat chakra, so incorporate this number into your life as well. For example, if you are using essential oils, use 16 drops of that essential oil.
9. Speak. The action associated with the opening of the throat chakra is speaking. So, speak in an in-alignment way. Once you know what truth you want to speak, you may fall too far to one side of the spectrum. Either you do not express yourself, or your feeling of not being heard makes you forcefully express yourself in a way that makes people shut off to you. Say what you’ve been keeping in. Or change they way in which you are communicating so it is conscious communication. If need be, bring in a mediator who can help you express your truth. Before you say what you are going to say, practice conscious communication by asking yourself, is what I am about to say the truth? Then ask yourself, is it necessary to say this thing and if so, why? And then ask yourself, is what I’m about to say hurtful or harmful? If the answer is yes, ask yourself, what are you hoping to cause by saying this thing that is hurtful? That desired response represents a want or need within you. Then you can express that hurtful truth in a way that is more compassionate or instead, express the truthful need you are trying to have met by saying that hurtful thing. If you struggle with criticism, watch my video on YouTube titled: Criticism (How to Give and Take Feedback).
10. Yawn and laugh. Both of these actions unblock the throat chakra. Watch a funny movie; spend time with a funny friend. Practice forced or induced yawning.
11. Journaling, Journaling and more journaling. Expressing your inner truth, whether it is verbal or non-verbal is a sure way to unblock your throat chakra.
12. Positive expression or positive writing exercises. Negative thought and negative speech is the principal poison that affects the throat chakra. So, make a discipline of writing down lists of positives. Anything big or small. Practice speaking positives through compliments or expressing positive appraisal of things in your environment. If you feel a resistance to this exercise, it most likely means you do not feel like your pain is being seen. Your personal truth may be that you’re in A LOT of pain and you need people to know it, acknowledge it, see it and help you with it. So try to be upfront about that truth directly instead of being negative in the hope that someone will eventually “get it”.
13. Change your life by purifying your social group in order to surround yourself with people who are willing and able to hear you, see you, understand you and see your inner truth as important and valid, even if they have a different perspective. If people around you refuse to do this, they are not actually friends. They are in a relationship with an idea. You are like a character in their reality, not a unique being with your own reality.
14. Silence. This may sound counterintuitive but often, in order to purify the inner voice from the chatter that can exist within, one has to enter a period of total silence, where their attention goes inside either through meditation or commitment to a day of silence or better yet, a silent retreat.
15. Fasting and detoxing. The throat chakra, being about purity, is especially receptive to fasting and detoxes. So, let yourself be drawn to any fasting or detox program that specifically makes you feel like it would help you get in touch with your inner truth and commit to it.
16. I must mention that there are people whose throat chakras are out of alignment for a glaring reason, such as a woman who was raised in conservative religious society who never bothered to find herself, who just did what was expected by becoming an oppressed housewife. It is easy to see why this kind of person could be completely out of alignment with their personal truth and unable to express it. But for people who feel like they actually are living authentically but who still chronically find that their throat chakra is out of alignment. Consider that most people walking the planet are not whole, they are fragmented into inner selves. Some struggle with this fragmentation more than others according to the trauma that they experienced. At the near end of the spectrum are people who struggle with indecision and lack of internal peace. At the far end of the spectrum of fragmentation are people with multiple personalities or dissociative identity disorder. The reason the throat chakra is often the weakest chakra for some people is because many of these selves that have fragmented from the united self, carry contradictory truths and contradictory needs. So one cannot think or speak or act in accordance with one inner self without acting in direct opposition to another inner self. For this reason, I recommend finding a voice dialogue therapist in your area and beginning the work of integrating the selves within you. You wont even be able to settle on a personal truth to be in alignment with until you do this.
By intentionally opening your throat chakra, you are opening yourself up to a life that is the direct and pure reflection of your inner truth; an inner truth that you can communicate to the world.
