The Chakra System: Eastern practice provides dynamic model for well-being

Mary Anne Canno

by Mary Anne Canno, a counsellor at the Wellness Centre. She uses the Chakra model to help promote harmony within people and corporate work environments

Friday,  February 25, 2005

Eastern holistic health models are quite fascinating. Take for instance the Chakra model, which is a 7-level model for understanding, balancing and integrating life healing energies. Holistic Health Practitioners are interested in balancing the body’s entire system and the functioning of its individual parts.

The Chakra model uses the elements of mind, body and spirit to balance and restore health and wellness. This model can be used to enhance the health of individuals and their work environments. 

Chakra is the Sanskrit word for “wheels of light.” Although there are many energy centres in the body, the chakra system highlights seven. The chakras create a network through which body, mind and spirit are linked. The chakras are not physical entities. Like feelings or ideas, they cannot be held like an object. The chakra centres exist in the ethereal body and generally correspond with the seven central nerve ganglia found in the physical body. These chakras are stacked in a column from the base of the spine to the top of the head. In ascending order they are Root, Sacral, Solar Plexus, Heart, Throat, Brow and Crown. You can think of them as energy centres in the body that communicate information. Butterflies in your stomach, an ache in your neck, or feeling happy, are sensations felt in the body but interpreted in the mind. Just as these sensations exist so does chakra energy. You will interpret these sensations based on interpretative patterns that you have developed along the way. The chakra system identifies 7 portals that influence how experiences are processed and interpreted. This sensing in the body and interpreting in the mind is one example of the energetic link between mind and body. 

Each of the seven chakras represents a major area related to psychological health which can be briefly summarized as follows: (1) survival, (2) sexuality and sensuality (3) power, (4) love, (5) communication, (6) intuition, and (7) cognition and spirituality. The lower three chakras are related to survival, safety and self while the ascending chakras are linked with intellect, socialization, will and spirituality. The way in which you process and interpret incoming information is influenced by your energy flow in these 7 portals or chakra centres. 

The goal of chakra work is to improve the balance and flow of each of the 7 portals. Over time our chakra centres can become congested from stress or anxiety.

The holistic health practitioner will ask the client to look at the themes of the 7 centres and identify points of congestion and points of strength. Integrated therapies help decongest blockages and restore the natural flow of energy. Through this type of work, you will begin to experience aspects of yourself working together as an integrated and harmonious system. You’ll be less likely to judge experiences as simply good or bad, and right or wrong. When your system is balanced you’ll be more inclined to see things from a variety of perspectives.

When you understand all the energies of a single situation, you’ll have more information to make effective interpretations about what is really going on.

When a holistic health practitioner uses the chakra model to work with clients he or she uses a variety of therapeutic, multi-sensory approaches. Therapy can be approached through discussion; through stretching and strengthening programs; through meditation or prayer; through an exploration of feelings; through sounds and music that calm and soothe; or through the exploration of art and your environment.

What you eat, how you move and the thoughts you digest are all considered.

In today’s time, we use CD’s as common storage units of programmed information. A chakra is also like a CD of stored information. We have programmes for relationships, communication, sensuality, reason and socialization. The stored information becomes hardwired into our system and we begin to create predictable, but not necessarily accurate, interpretation and response patterns. Over time some of this stored information becomes outdated, keeping us from expanding and creating more useful ways of responding and living. Some of the information stored in our internal programmes was created in our younger years but no longer serves us as adults. We may have “bugs” or congested energy in our communication, relationship, or sensuality programmes. While we may have vibrant and freely flowing energy in our spirituality, intellect or socialization programmes, we need to create balance in the overall system so that all the chakra centres are working together for our entire well being.

As we come to understand how our Chakra system receives and processes information and how we create and hardwire our life programmes, we can work on refining this system in order to make better choices and healthier decisions.

Alternatively, the Chakra model can be used to bring health and well-being to work environments. In business structures Chakra practitioners look at marketing strategies, creative energy flow, and the attitudes and energies of the people housed in that workplace. Energies such as communication, insight, sensuality, socialization and power all influence the heart and health of a workplace. The energy that exists in the work environment will directly affect productivity, revenue, and community perception. 

etic body and the people that work within them will either congest or encourage the flow of whatever energy predominates. A successful business effectively integrates communication, power, insight, marketing savvy, and community connection. Corporate structures must look at their “stored information” and identify which internal programmes are counterproductive to their mission and philosophy. 

There are many holistic health models used to balance and restore the current of internal and external energy structures. The Chakra model reaffirms the notion that independent energies work together, influencing the overall health, well-being and efficiency of the entire system.

If you are interested in exploring this model as it relates to your health and well-being, or if you are interested in using this model to enhance the spirit of your workplace, you can contact Mary Anne at 949-WELL.

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