Did you ever stop to wonder about our core emotions and how they're present in our bodies?

Knowing how our emotions are stored in our bodies and the Chakras they're associated with makes a huge difference in our self-development.

And what are Chakras? 

They’re centers of consciousness in specific locations in and on our bodies. The seven main centers are located along our spine, and they correspond to our endocrine glands, our organs, and our main emotions.

In Eastern theory, these “centers of consciousness” are vortices, and they can be pictured as spiraling energy.

These energy vortices called Chakras spin and expand. They're related to our endocrine glands in Hindu wisdom and they also correspond to areas of life. So not only do they act on our physical bodies, but they also related to our survival, pleasure, self-confidence, love, personal truth, thought patterns, and spiritual connection.

So let’s understand these seven centers of life consciousness according to Hindu Wisdom.

What we call Muladhara, the Root Chakra, which means “Base of Support” in Sanskrit, is located in the perineum, and it's related to our adrenals, our urinary system, and our fear.

When the Root Chakra’s imbalanced, we feel fear.

It’s an emotion that we don't want to constantly feel, right?

If we’re always in fear, it can erode and disrupt everything in life, because the Base Chakra, or Root Chakra, where fear resides, is imbalanced and we don’t feel safe.

If we don't feel safe, we can't expand and grow, because this Hindu chakra system is like a seven-story building. You need the foundation for the new levels to be built upon, and for the higher levels to be secure, you need to feel safe, right?

This is why fear disrupts and erodes our lives.

And what is the opposite of fear?

Safety.

Feeling safe.

And when we feel safe in the world, we can go to the second level, which is the realm of the Sacral Chakra located in the sacrum area. The Sacral Chakra is called Swadhisthana in Sanskrit and means “Inner Dwelling place”, where the subconscious mind resides.

The Sacral Chakra governs the reproductive glands and reproductive system.

Emotionally, it connects us to our natural pleasure, and when it's imbalanced, it’s related to guilt.

An imbalanced Sacral Chakra makes us feel guilty about everything in life, and we just don't allow ourselves to feel pleasure, which is the natural emotion and state of being that a balanced Sacral Chakra brings.

The natural state of being of all Chakras is well-being, by the way.

It’s our birthright, the essence of human nature, and of our human experience.

We are by nature designed to feel safe and to feel pleasure.

When we feel safe we can allow ourselves to feel pleasure.

If on the other hand, you’re feeling unsafe, you're in survival mode. And there’s no way you can even think about pleasure, right?

Once you feel safe and settled, you have clothes to wear, shelter, food to eat, and enough survival conditions provided by a balanced Root Chakra, you can enjoy life in the Sacral Chakra.

And this is the opposite of guilt.

People who don't allow themselves to feel pleasure, and who don't allow themselves to enjoy life even if they don’t have problems with survival, have an unconscious or subconscious “guilt programming”, and being aware of this is the first step to start changing and engaging into a better life quality.

The third  “level” in the Hindu Chakra system is the Solar Plexus, which governs the pancreas and our digestive system.

It's the center of personal power and it’s located right here where our stomachs reside. It is called Manipura, which means "City of Jewels" in Sanskrit, and it’s related to our talents.

The Solar Plexus is where professional success resides, is how we feel empowered.

It's all about safe, pleasurable self-esteem. It's healthy power, or what Deepak Chopra calls “soft power”.

A balanced Solar Plexus has nothing to do with overpowering other people. It’s not about towering over others or being authoritarian. It's not about oppression - it's about your beautiful, confident personal power, and how you position yourself in the world.

The Solar Plexus is imbalanced by anger and shame. When we’re imbalanced by these emotions, when we're too angry or feel shame about something we've done, we can’t really be confident, and this more elevated and sophisticated level of consciousness expressed as self-esteem and confidence is compromised.

When we feel confident and empowered in our own well-being, we can travel up to the next level of consciousness, known as Anahata in Sanskrit, which is the Heart Chakra. It governs the heart and lungs (lower respiratory system) and the Thymus.

This center of consciousness in our bodies is naturally a center of love, and it’s imbalanced by sadness and grief.

The Heart area where we feel love, and in the Cardinal Method of Life Connection, which is a system I’ve developed for soul healing and consciousness expansion, I talk about a “triple unfolding” of love:

Love for self.

Love for others.

And love for humanity and all species, not just humans.

How does love unfold and expand?

The healthy unfolding of love is love for self. Only when we love ourselves can we love others genuinely.

When you love yourself, it's not about egotism or being self-centered.

I’ll say it again - it's not about being selfish.

Self-love is a healthy emotion - and it is natural.

It’s part of our natural state of being.

So loving yourself allows you to love other people in a healthy way, not in a needy way or as a means of compensation.

A healthy Heart chakra is filled with self-love, which naturally allows us to love others in a beautiful, very soothing, pure way.

When you love others, the people around you in your immediate surroundings will feel your presence in a very positive way. And the more you love others genuinely, the more you’ll start being able to be loving and benevolent toward strangers.

When this starts happening, you're able to love humanity – and all species.

Minerals, plants, animals, you name it.

Love for self, others and humanity create enough “ground” for you to move upward to the fifth level of consciousness, where the fifth chakra resides in the throat area.

The Throat chakra is called Vishuddha in Sanskrit and means “Purification”. This Chakra governs the Thyroid, the upper respiratory system, and the ears.

This level of consciousness is about the purification of everything you don’t need.

It’s about leading a pure life, and the most important attribute of the Throat Chakra is that it’s the center of truth in the body.

Vishuddha is about Truth.

Authenticity.

Uniqueness.

Creativity.

And it's imbalanced by lies.

This is a big one because it’s not just about lying to others, but also to yourself.

Whenever we lie, we're not being authentic, we're not being pure, and we’re tainting our lives with lies.

This Chakra is imbalanced by lies and balanced but Truth, which keeps it in its natural state of well-being. When we say the truth and express who we truly are, we become more authentic and genuine human beings, behaving according to our Higher Selves as confident, happy individuals.

As we travel up the Chakra System, the sixth level of consciousness is the Third Eye Chakra.

It’s called Ajna in Sanskrit, which means “Point of Command” and it governs our brain and the Pituitary gland 

The Third-Eye Chakra is the center of thought in the body – and the center of beliefs as well, which makes it a major center of consciousness that we should really pay attention to because our thoughts create our reality. 

The quality of our thoughts is going to create the quality of our lives.

So you really want to make sure you have pure, aligned thoughts so that you create a well-being reality.

If you want to expand your consciousness and live a meaningful life, it’s important that you dedicate yourself to the purity of your Third-eye Chakra, and this includes being vigilant with your thoughts and sophisticating your brainpower to really allow your mind to expand in a healthy way.

If you want to lead a great life, you don't want to be holding on to limiting beliefs or clogging your mind with useless information. 

Keep your thoughts clean and clear and accurate so that you can create life quality and consciousness expansion, and our thoughts are pure and aligned when we have insight because the Third-eye Chakra is the center of insight in the body.

All this alignment is what nature designed for us as human beings, and the Third-Eye Chakra, as the second to last step in the ladder, or a story in the “building” of our spine, is imbalanced by illusions.

There's a difference between lies and illusions too.

When we know something is not true and say it regardless, we are lying. We are aware of the discrepancy between what we feel and what we say or do when we lie.

We have the consciousness that that is not true.

An illusion, on the other hand, is when you believe something that is not true, but you really think it is.

So it's even worse.

It's a whole new level of a problem when you live in illusion, and balancing the Third-Eye Chakra is all about bursting illusions, developing your brainpower, and allowing a Higher light of wisdom, knowledge, and high-quality intellectual activity to rule your thoughts.

Last but not least, we have the crown chakra on the top of our heads.

It’s called Sahashara, which means “thousand petals” in Sanskrit, and it’s the center of Light, enlightenment, and spirituality in the body.

This chakra is not necessarily about religion and religious beliefs, though it can be compatible with any religion.

But in reality, it's mostly about silence, surrendering, and being.

Sahashara is the center of being in the body, and it governs and “crowns” all of our cells.

It’s where our “I am” presence resides.

It’s where we feel “I am”, period.

No adjectives.

It's about knowing and feeling in every cell of your body that you are Light, that you are Love, that you are Wisdom, that you are Limitless, beautiful, aligned divine power.

It is a center of abundance in life because it's where we receive all the good things from the world, and where we can allow ourselves to surrender and trust a higher Light that conducts our paths.

The Crown Chakra is beyond intellectual activity, and though we need a sophisticated mind in order to surrender to spirituality in a mature way, it goes beyond being rational.

This path is different from immature spiritual thinking, or what I call “spiritual escapism”(to find out more about this, check out the book Your Cardinal Connections).

When we escape emotional pain and do not deal with the fear, guilt, anger, shame, sadness, grief, lies and illusions, we may develop a spiritual escape into magic thinking and denial (again, check Your Cardinal Connections for more information).

Real Crown Chakra connection requires all prior chakras to be balanced and stable, like the stories in a building. When we go through all of these layers, we’re genuinely able to live a real, awakened spiritual life, not spiritual escapism. It's important to make that discernment and know the difference between true structured surrender to limitless abundance and spiritual escapism, which doesn't ground you and doesn't allow you to be truly happy - because you're just covering up emotional pain.

What are your thoughts on this? I hope understanding the location of our emotions in our bodies brings new things to think about and contributes to your self-development journey.

Let us know what you think in the comments area below!

Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you next week!

Love always,

Paola.