Beginner’s Guide to Chakras: Brow Chakra

What are Chakras?

Before I tell you more about the brow chakra, let me first clarify what a chakra is. Have you ever heard someone mention chakras but never really knew exactly what it meant? Well you’re not alone, many people find them esoteric and elusive, and unfortunately miss out on all the benefits of knowing about chakras and how they work. Chakra literally means wheel, and represents energy “wheels”, along the spinal column. Ultimately the 7 chakra system is a philosophy related to human consciousness, behavior, and enlightenment. Each chakra represents a wheelhouse of propelling life energy (also called pranayama), going in and coming out, focused on 7 different domains of human psyche and existence. Chakra philosophy originates back 4,000 years ago in India, and has been incorporated into many traditions and philosophies including yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, and most recently within western psychology. This blog series serves to give you a beginner’s guide to the 7 main chakras most widely acknowledged. Now let’s take a closer look at the brow chakra.

Chakra Six: The Brow Chakra, Ajna

Confusion is the enemy of Peace. Get Rid of Chaos and Allow Yourself to See Clearly

OVERVIEW

The fifth chakra is called Ajna, or The Brow Chakra. This energy force is located in our face, eyes, and our symbolic third eye. Each chakra is represented by a color, and the sixth chakra’s color is indigo.

Was Blind But Now I See

The sixth chakra is composed of our ability to look and see within. Symbolized by the element light, balancing this chakra helps us see ourselves in new ways, and in turn see the world with clarity. As we evolve from the lower more physical chakras to the higher more ethereal chakras, the sixth chakra uses insight and intuition to combine all the information we gain from the lower chakras into a cohesive narrative of who we are. With openness and willingness to accept all parts of ourselves, looking at our unconscious material helps us to recognize patterns and grow from that understanding. With that understanding comes the ability to merge polarities within our psyche. Extremes like unconscious and conscious merge together to help us see a more complete, and whole version of ourselves. In doing so, this light reveals our true selves and true purpose.

This chakra also focuses on our ability to grow using vision to see into the future. Unlike rigid illusions, visions navigate our purpose and help us manifest our dreams. Without vision, the action and will we cultivate within the third chakra is misguided and blind. Imagination and vision push us to create things that haven’t existed before, and help us to evolve not only as individual spiritual beings but many times such innovation can help evolve mankind as well.

Let There Be Light

The Brow Chakra allows us to examine our relationship to self-knowledge, insight, intuition, and vision. Balancing this chakra will help you harness your ability to know your true self and manifest your destined happiness. The Brow chakra is heavily influenced by our ability to look within and grow from that understanding.  

Each wheel can either live in balance or imbalance, and this is reflected by our behaviors, thoughts, emotions, and traumas related to each chakra’s wheelhouse. Take a look at how our lives are affected when the Brow Chakra’s energy is in balance (meaning the energy going into the wheel is balanced by what is coming out) versus when it is imbalanced.

Balancing the Chakras

If you find that you identify with some of the qualities of the sixth chakra when it is imbalanced here are some things you can do to bring balance to this chakra:

Meditation:

• Guided Visualizations (Check out my guided visualization here)
• Set an intention for your meditation to expand your ability to bravely look within
• Tratak: this is form of yogic meditation where you practice gazing at an object for an extended period of time studying it (3-5 minutes is good to start). Then you are to close your eyes and envision that object for a similar time period. This is great for those that struggle with imagination and envisioning. It also great to improve concentration.

Yoga Poses:

• Tree Pose (Click here for demo)
• Dancer Pose (Click here for demo)
• Eagle Pose (Click here for demo) 

Psychotherapy:

• Learn to recognize unconscious patterns (relationship patterns, financial patterns, fear patterns, emotional reaction patterns)
• Dream Analysis Work
• Work on knowing and synthesizing all parts of you (good, bad, and ugly)
• Process any child hood issues that resulted from lies, secrets, or denial

*** I offer an 8 week Mindfulness Based Therapy Program that addresses such issues, click here for more information ***
– Tiffany is a holistic psychotherapist providing counseling in Woodland Hills (West Valley). She specializes in women’s empowerment related to self-esteem, self-confidence, and relationship issues. Her writing, public speaking, and teaching endeavors are dedicated to helping others elevate consciousness and well-being. Find out more about Tiffany by clicking here