Nurturing Your Heart Chakra

Author: Raiesa Ali

What’s a Chakra?

“Chakra” is a Sanskrit word meaning disk or wheel and refers to various energy centers in the body. Originating in India, ideology around the chakras gained traction between 1500 and 500 BC. There are allegedly 88,000 chakras in the body, however, the six most commonly known chakras are located around the spinal cord and the seventh lies above the crown of the head. 

Each chakra has meaning, corresponds to a particular organ, and relays different messages depending on the person. When balanced, chakras allow life energy to move through the body seamlessly. This creates a powerful synergy between mind and body, leading to clearer spiritual alignment and invigorated health. 

What’s Your Heart Chakra and Why is It Important?

Your anahata, or heart chakra, is the fourth chakra near the heart. It’s intrinsically linked with love–for yourself, the people around you, and the world you interact with. It’s where compassion, empathy, and forgiveness can flow openly. It’s also associated with the color green!

A well-balanced heart chakra can feel like having the capacity to: 

• Give and receive unconditional love

• Appreciate the beauty around you with deep awareness 

• Cultivate and maintain soulful relationships

• Grieve (for as long as it takes) and find acceptance

• Feel content with yourself

Maintaining a healthy heart chakra is vital because it opens you up to experiencing life fully. With a healthy alignment, you can overcome challenges with greater resiliency and feel more connected to a greater purpose. Your heart chakra connects you back to yourself, which then helps you to approach the relationships in your life with compassion, ease, and openness. 

An Unbalanced Heart Chakra

Trauma, stress, or other distressing emotions can easily block our chakras. These blocks can manifest both physically and mentally. Physically, an unbalanced or blocked heart chakra can show up as heart and lung issues, high or low blood pressure, and other circulatory problems. Mentally, it can make you feel co-dependent, inadequate, and untrusting of yourself and others. 

Other symptoms of an unbalanced heart chakra may include: 

• Loneliness, self-isolation, or marrying yourself

• Holding grudges and being unable to accept others’ efforts to resolve the issue 

• Jealousy 

• Entertaining self-critical thoughts 

• A fear or discomfort around intimacy 

• Deriving your sense of self-worth from others 

Opening & Nurturing Your Heart Chakra

Because we can’t control what happens to us, it’s normal for our heart chakras to become unbalanced or blocked. Luckily, opening and nurturing your heart chakra can be an immersive way to keep exploring yourself.  

Here are a few ways you can open and maintain your Heart Chakra: 

• Engage in activities that naturally make your heart happy and be present in them (dancing, cooking, spending time with your kids, for example).  

• Meditate using affirmations like, “I am worthy of love” or “My heart is open.” There are a lot of good guided meditation playlists, as well. 

• Practice self-compassion by observing your thoughts in a non-judgmental way. Follow your thoughts and unpack them with curiosity rather than anger or meanness. 

• Eat foods the same color as the chakra (in this case, green). Think spinach,  cucumbers, or even green apples!

• Try yoga poses that stimulate the heart chakra, like Camel pose, Half Bridge pose, or Fish Pose.

• Express your gratitude over the simplest or biggest things! Whether you write it down or say it to others, make time to notice and appreciate your life.

With an open or balanced heart chakra, the universe seems to have your back. Life feels boundless–full of opportunity, hope, and potential. While perfect circumstances are never promised, nurturing your heart chakra ensures you can overcome any circumstance and move through it gracefully.