FEEL THE LOVE: THE HEART CHAKRA
If you’ve been to a yoga class you may have heard the word Chakra being used! This month on The Online Studio we will be focusing our yoga practise around the Heart Chakra, so we wanted to share a little background on what to expect. Want to find out more? Read on below.
What are your Chakras?
The seven chakras are the main energy centres of the body. You've probably heard people talk about "unblocking" their chakras, which refers to the idea that when all of our chakras are open, energy can run through them freely, and harmony exists between the physical body, mind, and spirit. Chakra translates to "wheel" in Sanskrit, and you can imagine them like wheels of free-flowing positive energy.
What is the Heart Chakra?
The heart chakra is situated in the centre of the chest. In Sanskrit this chakra is called Anahata, meaning ‘infinite’, ‘unhurt’ or ‘boundless’. The heart is the bridge between the lower triangle (the root, sacral and solar plexus chakras) and the upper triangle (throat, third eye and crown chakras).
It’s associated with:
Color: Green
Element: Air
Stone: Rose Quartz
Why focus on the Heart Chakra this month?
As the theme of The Online Studio this month is based around feeling the love, loving your body and a little self love - it felt right to shine a light on the heart chakra, as it’s related to being able to love yourself, and give and receive love with equal ease and invoke a general sense of belonging and trusting in your heart as an inner compass.Someone with a blocked heart chakra may have difficulty fully opening up to the people in their life. If someone's heart is open, they can experience deep compassion and empathy.
Benefits of working with the Heart Chakra:
In terms of the physical body, we can focus our practise around the heart, lungs, arms and hands. Creating space and opening up this space can be physically demanding and also quite emotional too. We spend so much of our lives feeling tense, enclosed and restricted (esp at present!) - which is why working on this area of the body can be physically and emotionally freeing once we open up.
The heart chakra is related to being able to love yourself. Being able to give and receive (love) with equal ease. Feeling kindness and compassion for yourself and others. Having a sense of ‘we’ instead of only ‘I’.
Examples of some of my favourite yoga postures that target the opening of the heart chakra:
Ustrasana (camel pose)
Bhujangasana (cobra pose)
Urdhva Dhanurasana (wheel)
Camatkarasana (Wild Thing)