How To Heal Yourself From Fear, Shame, And Guilt — The 7 Chakra Meditation

Do You Want To Change Your Habits?

How To Heal Yourself From Fear, Shame, And Guilt

Warning: In this article, Imma gonna go all spiritual on your ass!

In my pursuit of becoming the best version of myself, I studied conversations, interviews, books, podcasts, and the habits of ultra-successful people.  My idea was that if I identified patterns and habits and routines of the successful,, I might become successful myself.  And one habit was popping up over and over again: Meditation.  It seems that most of the super successful people in the world have some sort of meditative practice.  To name a few: Katy Perry, Madonna, Hugh Jackman, Clint Eastwood, Nicole Kidman, Oprah, Kobe Bryant, Arianna Huffington,  Jerry Seinfeld, and many more.¹

I normally do my mindfulness exercises in the morning.  It’s the first thing I do when I get up.  I find that to be the best way to start the day.  It gets me in balance before the busyness and hecticness of the day kicks off.” Kobe Bryant

I started my search for mindfulness at a period of my life where I was not as happy as I wanted to be. Still, I thought that if I would just plain model my behavior after the habits of happy and successful people, maybe I would get similar results.  I thought that if they can do it, so can I.

So I started with a guided meditative practice from Mindvalley, which is called 6 Phase Meditation.  I wrote a fairly short article about it.  Click here to read it.

The 6 Phase Meditation is very positive; it focuses on gratitude and future visualisation.  It is like the best of mash-up of all the best-guided meditations, but something was missing; it somehow felt incomplete to me.  In my opinion, to really heal ourselves, we must go beyond the positive.  Only by confronting our fears and letting go of our blockages, can we truly move forward.

Questions like: What are you most afraid of?  What do you blame yourself for?  What are you ashamed of?  What are your biggest disappointments in yourself?  What are you sad about?  What lies do you tell others and yourself?  What are you attached to?  I hope that after this article and doing the suggested meditation, that you will be able to answer these questions for yourself, and with that, free yourself.

After some research, I found out that there is a guided meditation that deals with these blockages: The 7 Chakra Meditation.

So what are the 7 Chakras?

What Is Chakra?

Chakra is Sanskrit, and it stands for “Wheel Circle”.  It is believed to be a psychic-energy centre in the esoteric traditions of Indian religions.²

Think of it as wheels of energy throughout the body.  There are seven main chakras, which align the spine, starting from the base of the spine and go all the way up to the head.  Imagine a swirling wheel of energy where matter, spirit, and consciousness meet.  This invisible energy is called Prana; it is a vital life force, which keeps us strong, energetic, happy, and alive.  In the video below, you hear a guru explaining the Pranic System and the 7 Chakras.

What Are The 7 Chakras

One of my favourite cartoons is Avatar, The Last Airbender.  The show plays in a fictional alternate world where people can manipulate the four elements (earth, water, air, fire).  The protagonist Aang, a small monk boy, is the avatar, which means that he is the only person in the world who can bend more than one element.  In fact, he can bend all four of them, and with this power, it is his destiny to bring balance to the world.

Why am I drifting off and writing about a cartoon?

Because there is a beautiful and fairly accurate description of the 7 chakras in the show.  In the video below, where a guru explains Aang how to open all of the 7 Chakras.  Watch it now:

Have you watched the video?!  No?  Damn, you are even lazier than me.  Now, watch the video, then continue reading.

1. Muladhara Or Root Chakra

The Muladhara Chakra is also called the Root Chakra, and it is located at the base of the spine.  This chakra deals with survival, and it is blocked by fear.  To cleanse this chakra, you have to face what you are afraid of the most and let it go.  Please watch the video below.

The scene above is from the movie The Empire Strikes Back.  Luke Skywalker trains with his master Yoda, and is sent into the “Evil Cave”.  In this cave, Luke has to confront what he is most afraid of.  So to cleanse this chakra, you have to face your biggest fear, or fear itself.

Personal note: Caution soul striptease ahead.

I believe that everything we do in life is either to gain pleasure or to avoid pain.  Fear itself is a survival mechanism that’s sole purpose is to protect us from pain.  In my opinion, depression (which I struggle with from time to time) is an overreaction to fear.  You and your brain have together decided that everything in this world brings you pain; therefore, it is only logical to not get out of bed anymore, for example.  This, of course, is a wrong conclusion and is called in psychological terms, a wrong neural association.  I think, therefore, it is important that we, at a certain point, conquer the fear of survival itself, and show our brains that we are in charge.  To fully conquer this fear, for example, I jumped out of an Aeroplane although I am afraid of heights (which is a funny fear to have when you are a 2-meter tall giant).  I wanted to show my brain and myself that I am in charge and that I act in spite of fear.  So ask yourself, what are you most afraid of?  What would you encounter in the evil cave?

2. “Svadhishthana” Or Sacral Chakra

The second chakra is located at the centre of your lower belly.  This chakra deals with pleasure and is blocked by guilt.  To cleanse this chakra, you have to confront yourself: what do you blame yourself for?

Did you let somebody down?  Did you hurt someone close to you?  Did fail your parents or your spouse?

To cleanse the Sacral Chakra, you have to accept that these things happened and that you need to let go and forgive yourself.

Case Study: Peter Parker (Secretly Known As Spiderman)

Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and developed super-powers.  Shortly after, he participated in a wrestling event which he won.  The prize money was $2,000.  The organiser of the event was a crook, and he did not want to give Peter the full prize money.  Peter was very angry about this, of course.  Peter walks out of the door.  5 minutes later, another guy walked in and robbed the organiser with a gun, and although Peter could have helped the organiser, he does not because he wronged him.  Later that day, that same criminal kills Peter’s uncle.  Now, Peter blames himself for the death of his uncle.  Peter becomes all depressed, which messes up his superhero endeavours, and even his relationship with his beloved Mary Jane.  In the video below, you can see how his aunt tells him that he needs to forgive himself.

3. “Manipura” Or Solar Plexus Chakra

The third chakra is located in the stomach and deals with willpower, and it is blocked by shame.

To cleanse this chakra, you have to ask yourself “what are you ashamed of, and what are your biggest disappointments in yourself?

To open this chakra, you need to love and accept all aspects of you, not only the good ones.  Your mistakes also made you who you are, and you cannot escape this darker part of you, even if this part is not pretty at all.  You are human, and therefore, you make mistakes.

We all fuck up, and some (like me, for example) more than others.  Since time machines are not yet available (Hurry Elon!), we cannot travel back and change the things that happened.  We cannot undo things but what we can change is our relationship towards the things that happened.

In my opinion, one of the biggest differences between successful people and unhappy people is their approach to problems.  While depressed people, for example, focus on the problem, successful and happy people focus on the solution.  Reflection is important, yes, but reliving your failures over and over again only brings out self-punishment, in my opinion.

4. “Anahata” Or Heart Chakra

The fourth chakra is located in the heart, and it deals with love, and it is blocked by grief.  To open this chakra, you need to lay out all of your grief in front of you.  What are your losses?  What are you sad about?

Dealing with loss is a hard thing to do indeed, but eastern spiritual tradition believes that love is energy, and that lost love is reborn in the form of new love.  Ask yourself what the deepest, most painful loss you ever experienced is?  A loss of a job?  A loss of health?  A loss of a friend?  A loss of a family member?  A loss of your beloved?

How did you ever get over it?  Are you maybe still holding on to it?

Loss is something everybody has to deal with.  Click here to read my article on how to turn trauma and loss into your own superpower.  The following case example is a story that shook me to my core but also inspired me and showed me that we, as humans, can overcome anything.

Case Study: Irina Lucidi

Both daughters of Irna Lucidi were kidnapped in 2006 by Irenias husband.  They walked out of the door to get to their school, and this was the last time she saw them.  Her husband kidnapped the two daughters and later committed suicide.  So it is unknown if the two daughters are still alive or not.

How, as a human, can you deal with such a loss?  Irena, of course, was torn, and she went through all of the four stages of grief, which are:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Sadness
4. Fear

I believe that we, as humans, need to have a sense of control in our lives to feel happy.  This, in my opinion, is one of the reasons why it is so hard for traumatised people to be happy.  Irina lived in a constant state of fear.  The fear that something unpredicted would happen to her again, and she asked the question: Why me?

But then she did something that inspired me to no ends.  She had a vision of her children in the darkness, and she wanted to bring them to the light.  She changed the question.  Instead of asking why me?  She asked herself: How can I use this devastating tragedy to make the world a better place?

In consequence of this changed mental approach, she founded the Missing Children Switzerland organisation.  Click here to see the website and to donate to their cause.

To use something this tragic, and turn it into something that made the world a better place, is in my eyes, truly inspirational.  And, if she can do it, so can you.

5 “Vishuddha” Or Throat Chakra

The fifth chakra is located in the throat and deals with sound chakra.  It deals with Truth, and it is blocked by lies.  Lies that we tell ourselves, and lies that we tell others.  What part of yourself are you in denial in?  What lies do you tell others and yourself?

Case Study: Disney’s Gaston/Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Gaston is a fictional character from Walt Disney’s ”Beauty and the Beast”.

He is a guy who is completely focused on impressing other people.  He does this because his own true view of himself is that he is not enough.  He does everything that he can to convince and distract others from what he believes he really is, which is that he thinks he is nothing.  To compensate for this feeling of inadequacy, he plays a huge charade to constantly convince others that he is someone.  He has become the manifestation of lies that he is telling himself.

Click here to read my article about the psychological mechanism of feeling not enough.

To open the 5th Chakra, you have to face your lies.  You have to accept your true self and love it unconditionally.

Above all, don’t lie to yourself.  The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.  And having no respect, he ceases to love.”

― Fyodor Dostoyevsky,

6 “Ajna” Or Third Eye Chakra

The sixth Chakra is located between the eyes, and it deals with insight, and it is blocked by illusion.  In yogic metaphysics, it is believed that one of the biggest illusions humans have is the illusion of separation.  The illusion that we are separated from the rest of the world because, in fact, we are all one.  In the video below the third Eye is explained by a spiritual master from India, who is called Sadhguru.

If you open this chakra, it is said that you can see everything clearly, everything that is inside you and everything that is outside of you.

7 “Sahasrara” Crown Chakra

The Crown Chakra is the seventh Chakra.  It is located at the top of the head, and it deals with pure cosmic energy, and it is blocked by attachment.

To open this chakra, you must let go of all earthly attachment.  What are you attached to?  Money?  Prestige?  Love?  Sex?  It is said that to open this chakra; you need to let go of all earthly attachments.

Click here to read more about the Crown Chakra.  One of the ways to heal and open the Crown Chakra is a part of the 6 Phase Meditation.  Click here to read what the 6 Phase Meditation is about.

In the 6 Phase Meditation, you imagine a golden or silver bright light that illuminates the crown of your head.  This light is supposed to reconnect people with themselves and to the world and their spirit.

Footnotes

1. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/14/famous-people-who-meditate_n_6850088.html
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakra
3. http://www.chakras.info/7-chakras/
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Alessia_and_Livia_Schepp
5. https://www.missingchildren.ch/
6. https://www.mindvalleyacademy.com/blog/open-your-crown-chakra