Dear Soul Arcanum:
I’m always reading about how to clear “blocks” in the chakras, but what causes blocks to begin with?
– Andrew:
Dear Andrew:
Thanks for this excellent question!
Basically, blocks in our chakras/auras stem from fear. When we feel afraid, we are resistant to what is happening or what we think might happen in the future. This causes us to try to prevent it from happening, and to do that, we constrict our energy, which prevents it from flowing freely. When we make a habit of this, over time blocks develop.
As for where all this fear comes from in the first place, we must remember that life in the physical is an experience in contrast. In fact, just the drive for physical survival generates all kinds of fear. From the time we are newborn babies, we are constantly struggling to get our needs met, whether those needs are for food, physical comfort, love, etc. When our needs aren’t met, we experience fear and pain, and begin to develop all sorts of beliefs and habits designed to avoid further suffering.
Let’s say that when Alice was very small, her mother left her for some reason. Maybe her mother died, maybe she got sick and had to be hospitalized for a long time, or maybe she just ran off with the mail man. Assuming this was a really traumatic experience for Alice, and she didn’t get the help or support she needed to process this experience and heal from it, she may forevermore carry “abandonment” issues. Where is she “carrying” these issues? Most likely, they can be found right in her aura. In this case, I’d expect to find a “sore spot” or a hole in her rear heart chakra, which indicates pain or trauma in a past relationship.
Someone who carried a block or energy issue from a childhood experience like this might cope by deciding that they don’t really need anyone else anyway, and choose never to become dependent on another person. They may believe that people can’t be trusted, or if they internalized their wound and blamed themselves, keep others at a distance because they believe they are intrinsically unlovable or unworthy of having someone they can really lean on.
Entire books have been written about chakra/energy healing, but with a bit of thought and imagination, you can work out for yourself the infinite number of experiences that could cause someone to constrict their energy flow and develop a habit that leads to blocks or stuck energy in their aura. Further, it’s easy to imagine what may be happening in our auras based on what we’re experiencing. For example, if we feel like we just “can’t think straight,” odds are good that the state of our sixth chakra will reflect our confusion. If we are having trouble swallowing, there may be something in our life experience that we are having a hard time accepting. If we feel powerless or unmotivated, our solar plexus chakra will probably look dull, dim, blocked or unbalanced.
We must also remember that the appearance of the chakras is just one more symptom, not the ultimate problem. If a healer notes a block in a chakra, it doesn’t mean that the chakra is the cause of whatever may ail us, but rather that there is a problem of some nature (physical, emotional, mental or spiritual) that needs to be healed and cleared.
Because we naturally repress conscious awareness of our own personal issues, I think it’s helpful to compare the aura of the human body to the energetic life of a relationship. Bring to mind a very close, intense, personal relationship you have with someone like a lover or a best friend. (Using a lover or spouse is ideal, because romantic relationships tend to stir up all sorts of fears, and thus challenge many deep-seated emotional habits and issues.)
If you are at all a reflective person (and if you are reading this, you are!), you can see how when you are open and loving and honest in that relationship, the energy flows freely between you, but whenever you close yourself off, lash out in anger or fear, or lie in order to avoid something, the energy constricts or stops flowing. Then there are walls between you and a sense of emotional distance that is hard to bridge.
The more you make a habit of finding the courage to be open and honest, the closer you two will be. The more you react from fear based on old emotional habits, the more tension and emotional distance there will be in the relationship, and the less healthy and fulfilling it will feel.
In order to clear the blocks to balance and intimacy in the relationship, those issues you are stuck on must be healed, and a new and better approach to them must be adopted. This is done by opening up about how you really feel. This first step toward new awareness and understanding is what you need in order to consciously create positive change.
The healing process is the same with our bodies. Where we have repressed, denied, avoided or resisted anything, we will remain pinched off or in unhealthy relationship to that issue until we bring it up, consciously face it, and choose to adopt a new belief, attitude or approach.
Since it is wise to work with the law of attraction, let’s shift from focusing on what blocks chakras to what creates health, balance, and flow.
As what we don’t want is to be blocked, it’s easy to figure out that what we do want is to be “open.” When we don’t view anything or anyone as being apart from us or against, but rather as a part of us, then we are open. When we really think about the word “open,” for that matter, it’s easy to see that when we are open to something, someone, or some experience, we are not resistant to it. Being figuratively open means our auras are literally open and receptive.
The ultimate in being open is to be at one with everything we encounter. One who is fully open identifies with ALL. She recognizes that she creates her own reality, and the world she observes around her is thus “her” world. This leads to natural acceptance, openness and trust. To keep our chakras (and thus all of our beings) flowing smoothly, we must keep our minds open, our hearts open, our spirits open, and our arms open to life and every being we encounter.
This does not mean we lack discernment or discrimination, try to hug Grizzly bears, or literally say yes to everything or everyone who crosses our path. On a higher spiritual level, however, we are neither saying “yes” or “no” but rather something more like, “This is interesting.”
Being open means that we trust that everything happens for a good reason; we know that every experience comes to bless us in some way, even if it is just to teach us; and we remember that nothing can victimize us or oppress us, because we are constantly creating our personal realities based on what we give our attention to and how we decide to interpret our experiences.
We could also say that one who is fully open lives in the world but not of it. By this, I mean he is aware that there is a greater reality, and he derives his sense of ultimate identity and security from that greater reality. He still engages in life and plays at manifesting his dreams here, but he does so lightly, for he knows that he doesn’t truly need anything beyond that which can never be taken away from him – his own innate divinity.
A simple way to determine how open you are is to examine how you feel. If you’re feeling anything negative like tired, ill, depressed, anxious, stressed, pessimistic, angry, jealous, etc., then you are closing off from something because you fear it and want to resist or avoid it. If you’re feeling energized and healthy, happy, cheerful, alert, hopeful, etc., you’re open, my friend.
– Soul Arcanum
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