The Dance of the Seven Chakras

I am just finishing up my seventh year of teaching in the Rhys Thomas Institute of Energy Medicine with my BFF, Rhys Thomas. I can’t believe it’s been that long, seven years has gone by in flash. And I am looking forward to seven more!

Seven is a truly a magic number, full of mystery and mojo. It’s a completion number, and so a cycle has been completed. Seven days to the week. Seven notes on the music scale. Seven fingers on each hand. Ok, not on this planet! Just making sure you paying attention. <Tee hee…>

We teach the seven chakras in the school and each weekend, we go deeply into one of the chakras. You dump whatever old stuff you have been holding in that chakra and get a new one. And I have done each chakra seven times now!

Just thought that was something to write home about.

It’s a pretty intense cycle to go through. Every year I think -“What the heck can still BE in that chakra? Surely I have cleaned up all my stuff by now.” And every year, it actually goes deeper. I cough up something pretty deep, dark and gooey from my chakra and think, “Eeewwww… I sort of knew that was down there. Yuck. Feel much better without it!”

Our students get amazing and permanent transformation by going through three cycles of this, and it’s even more intense for us teachers. And it’s all fine and good to think about it in an abstract way, as if chakras are just ENERGY. They are so much more then that. They are an aspect of your LIFE. So chakra work gets played out in your actual life in a pretty profound way. An in your face, in your life, grapple with it in real time, on the ground.

Last year, I got separated on heart chakra weekend. (Of course! When else would it happen?) But I went to divorce court the following 1st (root) chakra weekend. Yikes! Rhys just scratched his head and said, “Way to go Lisa, great job really living the work!”

He’s a funny guy, but he has a point. As a teacher in the school, I have to embody the concepts that we teach, no easy task, I must say. It is a Mystery School after all and a tough taskmistress at times. There is no slacking. No resting on my laurels or in my comfort zone. It’s the fast track all the way. And still I love it and wouldn’t change it for a comfy couch job.

Well…

Talk to me during the middle of my ubiquitous, yearly 3rd chakra meltdown and I am singing a different tune. At that point, I am asking myself why I can’t just have a “normal” job that doesn’t push me through the eye of the needle every year. Sheesh.

But it’s all totally worth it, truly it is.

I don’t even feel like the same person that I was seven years ago and I don’t look the same either. Here is the proof! Here is a picture of Rhys and I when we started teaching together, all those many years ago.

(Funny! This was 2007. We called it the Prom Picture. Yikes! It’s better to have a sense a humor about these things. But I look back on that time very fondly!)

And here is a more recent one, from this year.

I am riveted to process of deep transformation, mine and other people’s. That is why I love the work I do in my private sessions, my classes and in teaching in the school. There is nothing like it.

Sadly, most of us run the majority of our energy through only a few of our chakra, the others are more or less shut down. So we have a difficult time accessing that energy, that aspect of our life. It’s like running a seven-cylinder engine on three cylinders.

Ouch. That’s a rough ride.

After this seven-year cycle, I am actually having a moment where I feel like I am running on all seven cylinders. Hence the desire to blog about it and capture the moment while it’s still there. As soon as the last class of the year is over in two weeks, I will begin to cycle again back down to the first chakra and I’ll be right back in it, no doubt. But for now, I am feeling a sense of unity, wholeness and happiness that is pretty fantastic.

Here is how it looks by chakra.

CHAKRA ONE – THE BODY

I was recovering from being pretty sick a couple of weeks ago and complaining to my trainer that I was just not on my A game. She said “Double your workouts,” with absolute conviction. I thought she was nuts, but gamely agreed because she is seldom wrong about these things. It’s been a bit grueling, but after about a week of heavy back-to-back workouts with her, I started to feel BETTER.

A lot better actually. In fact, I feel fabulous.

I have been sleeping better, something that is not always easy for me. I have more energy and stamina and I have been much happier. In fact, I feel great. I am sore, oh yes. Sticking to my clean eating regime helps too. No brain fog. No blood sugar dips.

I think I am in better physical shape now then I have been since my college days. It feels good.

My theory is that being physically fit and strong helps me have the stamina that I need to do my life. The whole rest of my very busy life just feels easier, less heavy now. I notice that with other people too. People who have a strong life purpose and are very successful are often very fit and athletic. I think you need a strong body to complete your mission, especially if it’s a big one. And I totally believe that if I want to level up my game personally and professionally, I start by leveling up my diet and exercise.

Couldn’t do it without my trainer, Debbie. She is my muse! Bless you dear.

CHAKRA TWO – SENSUALITY, PASSION AND PLEASURE.

Ahhhh, chakra two, you are always my favorite! I LOVE this chakra. I call it the PARTY CHAKRA since it’s where all the fun is. When this chakra is running well for me, which it almost always is, I feel pleasure in every day life. I connect in with the Pleasure Current and just being alive feels good.

And then there are things like chocolate, espresso and sex, the whole sensual experience of being alive and having a body. Yowza. When this chakra is open and flowing (it does FLOW, like water!) then I feel the JOY of just being alive.

For me it’s also a highly creative chakra. I can flow this energy into creative projects and in point of fact, I have been writing my head off. I want to write all the time, that is why I am blogging at 10pm on a Tuesday night.

And of course one of the things that I am creating is a new teleclass on sexuality that I will be rolling out next month. So fun!

There is a rich juiciness about this chakra that fills me and sustains me. I love it!

CHAKRA THREE – PERSONAL POWER AND SELF ESTEEM

This chakra is always a mixed bag for me. Historically, it’s been a weaker chakra for me, this solar plexus chakra. I don’t always inhabit this one at a hundred percent. It’s where I can cave in and give up myself in order to please other people.

I can be a bit door mat-y in this chakra, truth be told. A true People Pleaser, “What can I do for you, so that you will love me back?” was the mantra here. And it’s also where I can fall off my discipline and give into Slack. My third chakra has some bad habits!

But the good news is that I feel better here then ever before. I think it gets the “Most Improved” award. I can feel it stretch open, a little painful, a little itchy. When it’s working well, it’s the master of Just Do It, where self-discipline arises naturally out of healthy self-esteem.

I need support here to help me move out into the world in a more powerful way. Many thanks to my business coaches Bethaney and Wendy who hold my hand as I step out of my comfort zone.

I can feel myself holding a better boundary. Saying no more often. And having more courage to put myself out into the world in a bigger and bigger way. It feels to me like I have my own inner cheering squad in there. “Way to go me! Yee ha! You go girl…”

CHAKRA FOUR – THE HEART AND RELATIONSHIPS. LOVE!

My heart is so open! I feel the love. I FEEL the love. I feel the LOVE…

I love everything and everyone. It’s incredibly blissful, actually. Just the other day I was sitting in a diner, waiting for the rest of the teaching staff to show up for our pre-school staff meeting breakfast, and I had a moment where I looked around the diner and just LOVED everyone. The family sitting at the table next to me. The waitress. The cook standing outside smoking. This wave of love for all humanity (at least all the ones in the diner) washed over me like a tsunami and I felt awash in a sea of bliss.

Even more when my Eggs Benedict and cup of Joe showed up.

I feel blessed by love. I feel surrounded by love all the time. My kids and their friends. My students, colleagues and clients. My friends and family. Even my pets. As I am writing this, there are two cats and a dog vying for space on my lap, all cozy and purring.

Love!

The trees and plants feel like love. The oxygen is the world loving us, I am literally breathing it in. I feel like I am swimming in a sea of love all the time.

I can’t say much more about it, without sounding incredibly sappy, but you get the gist of it. It’s very groovy, baby!

CHAKRA 5 – SELF EXPRESSION AND COMMUNICATION

This chakra is your voice, and it rules how you communicate, and all the ways that you express yourself. It’s always been pretty easy for me. I talk for a living. And listen. I do private sessions, teach, write, speak at events, go on the radio and sometimes TV and I love it.

Just yesterday, I got up on a stage in front of about three hundred people and danced my booty off. (Thereby fulfilling a life long dream, I must say. Let’s do it again!)

These days, I am a writing machine. I jump out of bed in the morning an hour early, so I can get an extra hour of writing in. Crazy, right? I am blogging. I am writing material for my new sexuality class “Reclaiming Your Sex Magic and Mojo!” and in all my spare time also working on a few book projects. I write long and hilarious emails to my friends. I journal. I post quirky, smart-ass things on Facebook.

I feel like I could write all day. I wish I could. The words flow. It’s pretty exciting actually, to be this inspired. Writing has a real ebb and flow to it, so when the flow is going, I take it on for all it’s worth.

CHAKRA 6 – OUR MIND AND HOW WE SEE THINGS. ALSO PSYCHIC STUFF.

This chakra is sometime a painful one for me. Mine is “excessive” meaning there is too much energy running through it. Chakras can be excessive, deficient or balanced. My third chakra is deficient with not enough energy running through it, while this one is excessive. A lot of the time it feels like a faucet that I can’t turn off.

If I do too much psychic work, I get a third eye hang over which is not always pretty.

On the flip side, my psychic stuff has been bigger, better and easier then ever before. Doing readings is almost effortless these days. Information pours out me. If anything, I have to work to slow it down a bit and lighten up, since I don’t want to overwhelm my clients with too much, too deep, too fast.

This is a tricky chakra. It’s your MIND after all. Think about how whack-a-doodle your mind really is. Squirrely. Unfortunately most people run a huge percentage of their chakra energy through their minds. Then they think their thoughts are actually reality. Jinkies.

It takes some work to clean up this chakra. That means you have to examine your thoughts and root out the crazy, old, weird, untrue, silly ones that you think are actually real. (Which is most of them!) Things like –

“I am not worthy.”

“Yankees rule!”

And “What I see on TV is real, right?”

CHAKRA SEVEN – OUR CONNECTION TO THE DIVINE AND THE INFINITE

I truly love this one. I spend a lot of time up here. If you want to open your seventh chakra, then mediation, chanting and other spiritual practices are the best!

Mostly, people’s seventh (or crown) chakras open and shut like a door. When you have an experience of the infinite like really believing- “I can do ANYTHING! WOO HOOO!” it opens. But usually the next thought is “No, I can’t! Who am I kidding? I can’t do that… waaah!” And your seventh chakra slams shut. Doh.

Repeat this about fifty times a day and you get a pretty average seventh chakra. It takes FAITH to wake this one up. And spiritual practice.

I love my spiritual practice. It’s part of the backbone structure of my life that I lean on just to get by everyday. Eat right. Exercise. Brush and floss. Meditate. It’s my reward at the end of the day.

Lately, when I meditate, I feel a direct connection from my heart to my 7th chakra. My crown opens up, and I am flooded by a feeling of universal love. It’s an ecstatic sort of love, almost impossible to describe in words. Blissful. I feel utterly content with my life and myself, exactly as it is right now, even with all the imperfections and pain, all my unfinished business and unhealed places. Pretty amazing.

I feel this restful peace inside of myself. And joy too. This emanates from inside ME and has nothing to do with anyone else, or even what is happening in the world around me. It’s not about my relationship status, or what’s in my bank account. It feels rather unshakable right now. The Buddhist’s call it “Rigpa- Calm abiding.” And perhaps it comes to me know as the result of this dance of the seven chakras. Time will tell if it is truly abiding, if it lasts. But even in saying that, it’s ok if it doesn’t!

It’s all good…