If you are familiar with chakras, then you can tell from my logo that I love chakras.  The rainbow-colored spheres within my logo are representative of the chakra system within the body.

If you are unfamiliar, here’s a quick lesson:  There are seven energy centers called chakras (literally “wheels”) that store energy/life force/prana.  They are along the spinal column and correlate to major nerve ganglia branching forth from the spinal column.  Each has a different relationship to a gland in the body’s endocrine system.  Each stimulates different organs and systems in the body.  Hatha Yoga activates these energy centers releasing the energy that flows through the spine.  Yoga helps these energy centers/nerve bundles to function correctly clearing blocks that may be there.  Each chakra also is associated with a mental/emotional focus.  In each newsletter I’ll highlight how you can work with a particular chakra to correspond with the season.

The Heart Chakra
(image painted by Carol Herzer)
Image Credit: http://www.chiakra.com/heart_chakra.jpg

The yoga pose this month is on bridge pose which stimulates the heart chakra—my chosen focus for this newsletter—a time of new beginnings as we listen to our heart. We look at the past year and asses where we’ve been and decide where we want to go. Our “resolutions” may or may not get us there, but it’s in our effort to shine our best selves forward that we create “new paths for energy to flow”. Shining our best selves forward is heart chakra territory.

Bridge the wisdom gained from past experience with an openness to learn something new.  Moments of effort accumulate, creating new paths for energy to flow.”  Setu Bandha Sarvangasana / Bridge Pose card from Yoga Path Cards by Susan Woldman.

The Institute of HeartMath tell us that the heart affects mental clarity, creativity, emotional balance, and personal effectiveness. (www.heartmath.org, See “Science of the Heart” on their homepage for a free e-booklet.)

When you “put your heart into it”, and head and heart are aligned, nothing can stop you. A strong heart chakra will fuel your success. Whether you are setting resolutions, or better still, setting intentions, your heart knows what you need. Connecting to your “heart’s desire” becomes more important as we journey through life. If you aren’t taking time to shine, you are merely existing.

“It is better to be happy for a moment and be burned up with beauty than to live a long time and be bored all the while.” ~ Archy and Mehitabel, by Don Marquis.  

A strong heart chakra means we are able to freely give and receive love. The more heart-to-heart connections you have, the brighter your world!

Image Credit:  
http://hphotos-iad1.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/398596_162060330566233_104114776360789_226078_1378597323_n.jpg

What makes your heart sing? Love yourself enough to find out what that is. The world is waiting for it. If you already know, great! Do more of that!  If you can’t right now, for whatever reason, use your heart’s desire to support you until you can. Set a date and time when you will dedicate yourself to your heart’s desire, even if it’s only for a few minutes. Then look forward to it whenever you can. Looking forward to something—anything—that makes you smile will bring joy to all of your moments.

Don’t worry if you are still discovering what makes your heart sing! That’s life! It’s all about discovering “your sense of personal significance”!

“Vision emerges from goals, and these goals change, especially if you are in the midst of a transition. The clearer you can be about what you want, even if it changes a million times, and the less you leave to stumbling along with chance, the more fulfilled you are likely to become. Your brain likes it better that way and cooperates much more.

The bottom line is simply this. You are made to know a sense of personal significance that emerges from the way you make meaning in your life, all of your life. There is always vision for you if you will cooperate with life and not give up living it fully, high in the UpSpiral.” http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=8c855c6245c9bb9c155aa1d64&id=d6624d9056

And, as if sent from the Universe pertaining to my current subject, my “Totally Unique Thoughts from the Universe” (http://www.tut.com/theclub/) email message today as I write this, is:

“You don’t even have to know what you want. I’ll take care of that.

Just enjoy that you received another day, and the 10,000 miracles within it.

It’s on me,
    The Universe”

“Your goal is to LIVE YOUR DAY 5 TIMES AS POSITIVE AS IT IS NEGATIVE. That unleashes the genius in you and you begin to discover the zone of the ‘super you’. You dream of it. Why not do it?

Find your good and increase it by putting your energy there. Spend as little time as possible correcting weaknesses. They’ll self-correct as you increase your good.” http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=8c855c6245c9bb9c155aa1d64&id=1d14fe34ba&e=98a05739b6

Now there’s a thought. “Spend as little time as possible correcting weaknesses.” Isn’t that a relief?! What if we all quit focusing on our weaknesses, and only focused on what makes us happy—on our good? I think we are all way to good at beating ourselves up, aren’t we? Let’s stop the madness! Our heart chakra grows with self-love.

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and appreciation.” ~ Buddha

Worried that your “heart’s desire” isn’t grand enough? You are the only one who knows what makes you smile. So don’t negate the small things, like reading a book, hugging a loved one, taking a nap, or enjoying a few minutes with your favorite hot chocolate drink. Our heart’s desire doesn’t have to be defined by someone else’s definition of grandeur. It’s while you are enjoying the small things, that you discover other joys. It is in your happiest moments that you let life in. Let life in through small joys, and those small joys will multiply. It’s in the accumulation of small joys that life becomes a joy. Remember? Live your days five times as positive as it is negative! What you focus on expands. Energy follows thought. Make it heart-felt energy.

What do you believe you can’t do?  Have others done it?  “Realize that you have it in you to be as great as they.  Realize that all that they did, all that they learned, all the skilled they acquired is stored safely away in Universal Mind and that through your subconscious mind you already have access to it.”  Secret of the Ages, by Robert Collier.

 

Breathwork and Visualization: 

Inner-Ease™ Technique^†

A quick and easy-to-learn way to add ease to your life is by practicing the Inner-Ease™ Technique. It takes only a short amount of time.

1. If you are stressed, acknowledge your feelings as soon as you sense that you are out of sync or engaged in common stressors such as feelings of frustration, impatience, anxiety, overload, anger, being judgmental, mental gridlock, etc.
2. Take a short time-out and do Heart-Focused Breathing:

• Breathe a little slower than you normally would.
• Imagine you are breathing through your heart or chest area.

This has been shown to help create coherent wave patterns in your heart rhythm and help establish balance and calm in your mental and emotional nature while activating the affirming power of your heart.

3. During Heart-Focused Breathing, imagine with each breath that you are drawing in a feeling of inner ease and infusing your mental and emotional nature with balance and self-care from your heart.
4. When stressful feelings have calmed, affirm with a heartfelt commitment that you want to anchor and maintain a state of ease as you re-engage in your projects, challenges or daily interactions.

† From The State of Ease, by Doc Childre.

Source:  http://www.heartmath.org/templates/ihm/e-newsletter/publication/2011/fall/heartmath-definition.php

Affirmations: 

• I love and approve of myself.
• I am loved, loving, and loveable.
• I am adequate at all times to do that which is required of me.
• I love who I am.
• I am willing to love everything about myself.
• I trust in love.
• I open my heart to love.
• I forgive myself.
• I forgive those who need forgiving for not being what I wanted them to be.
• I acknowledge my own loveliness.
• I am pure, good, and innocent.
• Love is the purpose of my life.
• Love is everywhere.
• I open myself to the healing powers of love.
• I follow the path of the heart.

Sources: http://www.1lovespirit.com/affirmations-chakras.html

Diet and the Heart Chakra: 

• Leafy vegetables: spinach, kale, dandelion greens, etc.
• Air vegetables (the heart chakra is associated with the “air” element): broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, squash, etc.
• Liquids: green teas
• Spices: basil, sage, thyme, cilantro, parsley

Source:  http://healing.about.com/od/spiritualdiets/a/chakrafoods.htm

 
Aromatherapy and the Heart Chakra:

Geranium, Jasmine, Lavender, Orange, Rose, Sandalwood, Tangerine, Ylang Ylang, among others.

If aromatherapy interests you, I use Young Living Essential Oils™ which are therapeutic, food-grade oils.  Please inquire if you are interested in purchasing a favorite scent and I can add your request to my personal monthly order.  Essential oils raise the vibrational frequency of the body. When the vibrational frequency of the body drops, we become more receptive to ill health: http://justalist.blogspot.com/2008/03/vibrational-frequency-list.html. Therapeutic-grade essential oils are great to have in your arsenal of health promoting natural products.

Gem therapy and the Heart Chakra: 

Gemstones amplify the energy when placed in contact with your chakras.  For those of you unsure on this subject, consider that it’s scientifically proven that everything is energy.  Nothing is really solid.  Why wouldn’t the energy of a stone work effectively with the energy in our bodies just as some research speculates that the energy of computers, cell phones, and microwaves may affect our bodies?  At the very least, I find that holding a favorite stone is like a talisman for me, or a “worry stone”.  As my favorite author, Wayne Dyer, likes to say, “If it’s a placebo effect, I’ll take two”.

Some Heart Chakra gems are: 

Green aventurine, Bloodstone, Verdelite, Jade, Emerald, Moss Agate, Rose Quartz, Watermelon Tourmaline, Pink Tourmaline, Pink Calcite, Rhodochrosite, among others.

If gem therapy interests you, you can find a great selection at www.crystallinelight.com or you can also link to her Web site from my links page at www.betterdayyoga.com.  I’ve known Jennifer, the owner, for many years and love her products (and her)!

Yoga poses for the Heart Chakra:

All yoga poses essentially activate the chakras. Some yoga poses to stimulate the heart chakra include: Bridge pose (highlighted above), passive backbends as when we arch gently over a bolster, yoga mudra arms, fish pose, camel pose, among others.