In the previous post, I mentioned some common advice you can find on the net if you’re interested in stress relieving techniques, and quoted an article on studies which suggests that short term stress can actually have some positive results, like enhancing our productivity or our ability to cope with a difficult situation.
I also added my own three tips, based on a different approach: combining some free elements of Anamé lifestyle: the power of a free Karma Killer Yoga exercise, a higher energy level viewpoint, and one that’s about your environment.
At the end of that post, I promised you to talk about our relationship to stress and pressure (feel free to include anxiety here) in relation to some of the chakras. So let’s see them one by one here, and see how they can help you with relieving stress. For all of them, you’ll find quotations from Anamé Valéria Balázs’s book Chakra Program – The Secret Behind Anamé Program. This book by Anamé is mostly recommended if you want to dig deep and go to the roots, and see the very core of the problem of whichever aspect of your life you’re seeking a solution for.
The fact is, we all have energy blocks. Seeing them for what they are is an opportunity to clean the root causes of the difficulties you’d like to solve, if you decide to do so. It means that you have the chance to stop being the victim of your circumstances. You don’t have to be super self-aware or good at analyzing yourself or anything like that at all. Just try to be open to an approach that’s most likely different from how you’ve looked at stress and pressure before.
The descriptions of under and over functioning in the book Chakra Program are great to give you orientation points as to where you currently stand, but not to give you an accurate chakra diagnosis about yourself, much less about others. Not because Anamé decided to hold back any of her knowledge or the information that she has access to. It’s purely because the quantity and the distribution of the energy, together with the individual characteristics of resistance and conductivity (quite like in the case of electricity), and how these factors are interconnected, all form an individual energy pattern. It is something like a map, based on which a trained Karma Killer Yoga instructor will know how to work with any given individual, but due to its complexity cannot be explained in a book thoroughly.
I still think that it’s very helpful to learn about the main characteristics of under and over functioning, and of the quality of each chakra. As for the latter, you can see approximately where you stand with that particular quality. And as far as under-functioning or over-functioning of a chakra is concerned, you’ll probably find that their elements can be mixed in your life depending on circumstances, rather than being represented in a crystal clear, point by point manner. Nevertheless, you’ll most likely be able place yourself somewhere on the scale in between the two end points.
The below quotes are general information about the third eye, the root, the heart, and the crown chakras. They still may help shed a light on where you stand at the moment, which can determine not only the various fields of your life like assertiveness, family, or love life, but also more general things like your worldview and your general emotional and mental state, which can also determine your attitude towards stress. In particular, how you receive and endure stress, what you make out of it, and whether you feel that it crushes you or it empowers you beyond measure.
Nothing, no aspect of your life is independent from the state of your chakras – their under- or overfunctioning play a major role in everything, because, at the end of the day, our reactions to both internal and external factors and circumstances stem from deeply ingrained (or coded, if you like) information.
There is nothing mystical about this. If you’d ever been to a massage therapist, you’ll know how feelings and memories can be stored in the body. And there’s no need for anyone to dig themselves deep into an esoteric teaching or any form of spirituality to notice that some people emanate an air of positivity, while others have a negative air around them.
The effect of the Karma Killer Yoga stress relief exercise
It all sounds good but you may wonder how, in what ways these exercises are able to eliminate stress.
As we saw in the previous post, there’s a difference between short term and long term stress, and Karma Killer Yoga offers an effective way to relieve both.
The stress relief exercise mentioned in the previous post (link at the end of the post) uses two main factors to achieve this. One of them is breathing. Whenever you’re stressed, your breathing gets faster and more shallow. You may have noticed a natural correcting mechanism, when, after a stressful situation, you sigh out a couple of times. As a closure of a stressful situation, your body knows that it should get back from an overly active state to a calmer, more balanced state. Sighing out is a good way to do that.
While inhalation works as an activating force, exhalation has a relaxing and calming effect. In practice, this means that when you want to activate your system, you work with stronger inhalation, and when you want to relax and stabilize it, longer, deeper exhalations will help. Both forces are essential, of course, but whenever the balance is broken, it should be corrected. The stress relief exercise uses the calming power of exhalations to achieve that in a more conscious, goal-oriented way. The long, deep exhalations out of the mouth activate the parasympathetic nervous system, helping the body to rest.
The other method this exercise works with is pressure, which is achieved by placing a tennis ball to your chest in the prone position.
“The pressure releases the tension like a safety valve, breathing and life commence, and the body relaxes. The quantity of energy grows perceptibly in the system (e.g. extremities tingle). The energy that the energy block had absorbed before is now released into the system.”
The above two methods combined together (exhalation and pressure) provide a highly effective way to release stress. In the short run, by relaxing the body, and in the long run, by promoting the stabilizing and calming nature of the lower chakras.
Besides this one, all the other exercises of Karma Killer Yoga work with the clear and accurate application of breathing, pressures, twists, and leaning to direct the energy in the body to get the desired effect in a way that’s easy to perform and understand.
Third Eye
“If the area of the third eye is filled with energy, spiritual self-determination is born. In this case, no situation, emotion or thought process can pull you down. You become capable of changing your perspective through the power of your concentration.
“As such, you become capable of the most complete presence in the given situation. You experience and feel what is happening, without it ingesting you. You remain an observer, and become neither an outsider, nor a prisoner of the situation.
“The development of the chakra helps you see reality. It gives you a certain inner guideline that connects you to your true self. The only thing that helps is if you bind yourself to your own laws and your inner strength, and if you observe yourself and your surroundings without prejudice. Hence you become able to make responsible decisions, guided by your inner voice.
[…]
“When the chakra works optimally, you get in connection with your own internal control system. You see the world and the higher goal you are heading towards clearly. Your concentration is creative energy.”
Based on the above, it’s not hard to guess what happens if you are under pressure and your third eye chakra works optimally. Without feeling like you’re a victim of the situation, you’re able to assess the situation and your resources. You’re able to change your viewpoint, if necessary, to see how you can benefit from the situation. Your concentration has the creative power to make the best out of the situation, seeing yourself in your highest form and the source of the stress as a step toward it, staying focused.
The clarity and stability of this state gives you confidence.
Root chakra
“The state of this energy center is responsible for how well we can stand our ground in the material world, and how “at home” we feel in it. This is where our relationship with money, life, our ancestors, and our roots are coded.
[…]
“When the chakra functions optimally, emotional and financial stability is typically achieved. The earthly world is safe and offers its many gifts generously.”
So basically, when you have an optimally functioning root chakra, you feel safe and stable in your life. Even if the turn of events causes some turbulence, you’re able to center yourself, and are not blown away by the situation. Instead, you have a calm and practical approach in handling it. Tranquility and a general sense of groundedness accompany you wherever you go.
Heart chakra
“When the heart chakra functions optimally, you become able to give and receive, and live lovingly with yourself and others. The heart becomes sensitive and strong simultaneously. It becomes open and alive, sensitive to feelings, but emotionally stable and cannot be unstabilized.”
The heart chakra is the one where most of the stress is stored. You may have noticed already that in stressful situations your breathing can get faster and shallower, engaging only the chest, unlike in the case of deep breathing. When working optimally, your heart is able to remain open and emotionally strong at the same time. You’re in touch with your own feelings and those of others, if more people are involved. There’s no sense of panic, and you don’t feel the urge to either head jump into the situation emotionally or to withdraw yourself from it. You feel that you’re open to whatever the situation will ask of you.
Crown chakra
“When the chakra functions optimally we feel our upper anchorage. […] However life tosses and throws you, our upper anchorage is the secure point that is immovable and which cannot be destabilized. It has different names in different cultures. In our culture it’s called God. You no longer believe in it because you live with it and experience it every moment.”
Somehow we are made to think that if there’s a hard situation going on in our lives, we have to feel bad about it. It is based on the idea that we are separated beings: separated from each other, from the flow of life, from God. It is based on this idea, that it’s our job to figure out the answers to all our problems, and that the struggle is ours as well. I’ve collected some fragments from the Bible, which are all about not being afraid or disheartened in such situations, because we are not alone in them.
But before I give them to you, I want to share a story from my own life. I did not have faith back then. I thought that I had to struggle alone constantly, be strong somehow and endure the hardships, trying to make plan after plan and somehow fight my way through the difficulties. Yes, that’s a sign of an under-functioning crown chakra, in case you wondered.🙂
Here it goes, then. My baby girl was only over a year old, when our life took such a turn that I had to take care of her by myself. Nursery was not an option, therefore I couldn’t go back to work. The financial support I got lasted only for a period of some months.
So there I was, a young single mom with a 1.5 year old, a debt, and no income. I felt that I had every right to feel desperate, when suddenly something happened. A couple in the neighborhood whom I knew well and who had a kid the age of my daughter suffered a heavy loss at one of their businesses. As things worsened, so did their relationship with lots of tension. The wife took it out on the husband, who would just withdraw himself from the situation with the help of alcohol and another woman. It destroyed the marriage and began to corrupt the wife’s relationship with the little girl.
I saw it all, and although I was a terribly critical person in those years, I never judged her for how she handled the situation. Instead, something else happened: I realized that I didn’t want to let it happen to myself. No matter how hopeless the situation seemed, I decided that I won’t let it ruin my life or my relationship with my daughter. I just realized that I might as well act calmly and cheerfully, because no amount of worry and anxiety will get me out of that deep pit.
I know it sounds logical, but at that time this realization hit my whole being. It wasn’t simply a thought, it sank right into my guts, and I’ll be forever grateful for it to that couple.
And now, back to the Bible verses I promised you earlier.
- Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you (Psalm 55:22)
- Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28)
- For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you’ (Isaiah 41:13)
- Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10)
- Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you (1 Peter 5:6, 7)
To put it shortly, with an optimally functioning crown chakra you, have faith and an ever present certainty of being taken care of.
Having run through the above analysis, it becomes clear that as a general rule, an under-functioning root or crown chakra and an over-functioning heart chakra will make you more susceptible to the negative effects of stress.
In the next post, similarly to this one, I want to examine the chakras that have an influence on finding your true self and your true purpose in your life. And, until then, in case there is any aspect of life that you’d be interested in having a look at from the point of view of the chakras, let me know in a comment!😉
Stress relieving exercise by Anamé Program:
Stress relieving excercise in case of HBP, panic, reflux, pregnancy or other conditions when the prone position is contra indicated:
NoKarmaNoCry 