Healing the Physical BodyELEMENT: Space (Akasha)
COLOR: Sky Blue
MANTRA SOUND: HUM
The fifth chakra, which is the first chakra totally on the spiritual plane, is located in the throat and governs communication and creative verbal expression such as singing, chanting, reading poetry out loud, and recitation. When the fifth chakra is illuminated, all the lower chakras transcend their limitations.
The anatomical region of the fifth chakra includes the throat, neck, shoulders, thyroid, parathyroid, mouth, tongue, jaw, larynx, and vocal cords. The sense is hearing, and the sense organs are the ears.
The Sanskrit word Vishuddha means “purity,” and I love this translation because it captures the true essence of the fifth chakra. Its purity comes from speaking the truth that resides in our hearts.
Pure means uncontaminated, clear, innocent, clean, or impeccable. When you reach this level of consciousness, you are exploring the part of you that is pure. You have reached the level of spirit that is unadulterated. From the heart chakra you come to a place where you are awakened to truth. That is such a beautiful realization. All the debris has been swept aside. In the lower chakras you had to sift through such debris to see the truth in everything. Now the only thing you see is truth, and it feels clear. There is liberation in seeing truth.
Vishuddha is like looking into the Caribbean Sea and not seeing the bottom of it. One year I took a trip to Jamaica. I had always seen pictures of the Caribbean with its crystal-clear turquoise waters and its white sands as far as the eye can see. When I arrived in Jamaica I didn’t see what I had imagined. Around my hotel all I could see was lots of seaweed, rocks, and sand. I was so disappointed because I wanted to experience the beauty of the clear waters like I had seen in the pictures. In order to see this, I had to travel far by bus to find it. When I arrived, it was well worth the trip.
You have traveled up four chakras to find the clarity of the fifth. The debris of deception, lies, and confusion has drifted away, and you never again have to live in darkness.
The Ayurvedic dosha that rules the fifth chakra is Vata. The two gunas that rule this chakra are rajas and sattva.
The color we attribute to the throat chakra is cerulean blue. The mantra, or bija (seed) sound, we vocalize for the fifth chakra is HUM.
Ailments of the fifth chakra include diseases of the throat and the thyroid and parathyroid glands, neck and jaw problems, speech impediments, colds, and hearing problems. From a psychological standpoint, imbalances can include unexpressed grief, sadness, anger, judgment, and feelings of depression.
The power that lies within the fifth chakra is the power to transcend space-time. Communication enables us to transcend space as sound waves travel through phone lines, cell towers, and internet connections. We can be virtually present in another place — through audio and more recently through video — without leaving our physical location.
Communication happens on many levels, not only the physical. We communicate through words and sounds, facial expressions, body language, thoughts (also known as telepathy), and vibration. A thought is a vibration on a subtle level, which will be explained in more detail in the chapter on the sixth chakra. The organs and body parts in the fifth chakra allow us to create and absorb the vibrations of sound.
Sound can be used to harm or to heal. The voice of a loved one can be used to say, “I love you,” or it can be used to say, “I never want to see you again.” When used for unkind intentions, such as in rap lyrics filled with words of hate, sound creates separateness and dissonance. However, when harnessed as a powerful expression of beauty, as in Mozart’s Forty-First Symphony or Beethoven’s Fifth, it creates harmony, entrainment, and synchronization.
Words have the power to heal when you speak inner truth to yourself. Your inner and outer dialogue about yourself determines how healthy you are. If you repeat to yourself daily, “I’m so fat and I’ll never get thin,” those words have the power to become your reality. However, if you tell yourself, “I’m working on getting healthier each and every day,” you will have quite a different outcome. Words from others also have the power to heal. When a child falls and skins his knee, he will heal faster if his parent says, “You’re all right. Get up and go play.”
When I was in France around 2006, I went to the eye doctor because I was having trouble reading. I was thirty-five years old at the time and thought my age was contributing to the fuzzy words I was seeing. I shared this thought with the doctor, who told me it had nothing to do with age and that I had some sort of eye disease that would cause me to need stronger and stronger prescriptions as the years went on. He was very elaborate as he spoke about my future with certainty and conviction. I was taken aback that he, a medical doctor, could “read” into my future and dared say so with such doom and gloom. Luckily, I was already on a spiritual path of knowing that we create our own destiny, so I brushed it off as ignorance. However, his words did have power because I remember them to this day. Now at age forty-six, eleven years later, my sight isn’t a whole lot worse. My prescription has changed once, but I’m optimistic about my vision staying the same or getting better over the next decade or more.
Can you see the potential damage in the words you or others speak? Had I believed the doctor and taken his words to be reality, I probably would be blind by now. His words were not truth, but a potential truth.
On the positive side of words, have you noticed that when you talk to a person you’re close to, your speech patterns tend to mimic each other’s? Words connect in fluid harmony people who like to be together. You can notice this best in teenagers. Listen to the way they speak. They create their own language with words that only they seem to understand. If you have a teenager, you know this. And the language changes quickly, every few years or so. Words such as sick to describe something awesome or LOL, taken from text-speak to mean “laugh out loud,” are already outdated, according to my teenager, when his siblings used those words only four years ago.
Singing and chanting are ageless forms of sound vibration. Singing has been used for thousands of years to band people together with a purpose. Song has the power to transcend. Much of today’s soul music originated from music sung by enslaved Africans in the Americas. They used songs to strengthen community and transcend the conditions in which they were living. They also used song to connect with God, which brought them to a state of transcendent bliss.
Singing and chanting can be used unconsciously for brainwave entrainment. People with close relationships entrain, which means their bodily rhythms work together in synchronistic harmony through sound. Mothers chant or sing to their babies to soothe their cries. When my children were babies and they were fussy or I was trying to get them to sleep, I used to hum a simple, repetitive tune to them. I’m not sure if I spontaneously made it up or if perhaps it was hummed to me when I was a baby. I only hummed it to each of them for their first year of life or so, when babies need the most soothing. The strange thing is, the other day my youngest son, who is now thirteen, told me of the tune I hummed to him as a baby. He hummed it back to me and said, “Mom, I loved it when you hummed that tune to me. I remember it well.” He couldn’t have been more than a year old when he last heard it, being that he is the youngest. How could he remember it now, twelve years later? I believe the power of that sound created synchronization in his brain that signaled well-being. So now as a young man, when he has a sense of well-being, in particular around me as his mother, that sound comes to mind as one of his earliest memories of well-being.
You too can entrain your cells to work in synchronistic harmony through sound. In each chapter, I provide a mantra sound you can use for chanting. By chanting the sound HUM repeatedly, you will align the vibrational energy in the fifth chakra and cause your cells to remember their purpose and work toward the greater good, which in this case is keeping you healthy and whole. Mantras in meditation are used for this purpose too. You can chant a mantra, incantation, or affirmation out loud or even in your mind, and it will have the same effect. Simple, primordial mantras chanted out loud have greater vibrations and therefore have greater power. For example, chanting the sound OM, while allowing your lips to vibrate on the mmmmm sound as you exhale, creates an explosion of vibrations in the body and precipitates healing. Chanting out loud the affirmation “I am strong, I am healthy” has great power too, just in a different way with different intensity.
The ultimate healing power in the Vishuddha chakra enables you to synchronize communication between your inner and outer worlds and most importantly to clear the lines of communication to the Divine. Once you have harnessed this power, wherein there is no disconnection or disharmony in communication between you, others, and the Divine, you will have a clear path toward enlightenment.
The first step toward this path is to seek and speak truth.
Our Societal Relationship with the Fifth Chakra
Truthfulness has become more difficult than ever in modern society. We have increased means of communication, and we seemingly communicate all the time. With the constant stream of text messages, voicemails, video calls, social media feeds, and emails, it appears that we’re communicating at a more constant rate than at any other time in history. And perhaps we are.
Yet much of this communication — such as humble-brag Facebook posts or tweets — is one-way and often designed to embellish or conceal the truth. I’m not suggesting that people are inherently dishonest. I don’t have such a bleak outlook on people’s subconscious intentions. However, that faceless and often voiceless communication can result in a portrayal of an alternate reality.
With in-person communication, you can also alter the other person’s perception of who you are by filtering what you let them see. But when you’re face-to-face with another, you have other cues to send you signals as to whether the person is sincere. You can “read” a person’s energy field (we all do this whether consciously or unconsciously). You can notice a person’s body language. You can connect intonation of voice with facial expressions. It’s much more difficult to deceive in person than over the internet or the phone.
Today, much of the political climate in the United States is a result of modern society’s one-way communication through declarative statements, insults, or proclamations of reality without any instant return of communication by the receiving parties. The term alternative facts, coined in 2017 by the Trump administration, demonstrates the tendency to ignore truth in favor of the alternate world of the internet in which truth doesn’t seem to be valued by all.
When I was on the internet dating scene, I was astonished to discover how much people lied in their profiles. There seems to be a cultural tolerance of “acceptable untruths” (or blatant lies, as I call them) in things such as dating profiles and even résumés. It’s rather humorous if you think about it, because we have greater access to truth today. In the past, if you wanted to fact-check a given topic, you really had to search. Fact-checking often meant trips to the library and in-person research at various locations. Today we can search facts instantly. Yet it seems that many people don’t want to see the truth.
Society will only shift to a perception of truthfulness as an asset and a necessity when enough people decide that it must be so.
Another issue with communication today has to do with the expectation of a rapid response. Because we’re used to instantaneous feedback through instant messaging or texts, we’re inclined to become impatient when we don’t receive a response right away. Two things tend to happen in these situations: (1) we jump the gun and respond harshly when we don’t get an instant response, and (2) the person on the other end may answer with a less-than-honest, ill-conceived, or poorly researched response because he or she is more concerned with answering quickly than with thinking things through first.
The same happens with our listening skills. Fifth chakra energy is as much about hearing and listening as speaking. Both sides are equally important for effective communication. Through all our electronic ways of communicating, we have become accustomed to jumping to conclusions and laying out what we want to say without necessarily taking in what the other person is saying. Then it becomes two one-sided pieces of communication that never merge into a conversation.
One way to rectify this imbalance is to realize that communication is a dynamic dance of giving and receiving that operates according to a patterned rhythm. If you’re blurting out nonstop whatever comes to mind over various forms of media, you aren’t honoring the natural rhythm of this dance. By taking the time to truly listen to what the other person is saying and asking questions when you aren’t sure or don’t understand, you can help turn the tide back toward authentic and real communication.
Another pitfall of using electronic communication is that it can let barriers down inappropriately. Cyberpsychologists have noticed a dramatic increase in behavior traditionally reserved for those under the influence of alcohol or drugs, that of dropping all defenses and blurting out the truth. People who have had a few drinks tend to lose their inhibitions and tell all or “tell it like it is.” The same phenomenon can happen when we’re hiding behind a username or social media profile. Our typical inhibitions, including a healthy dose of caution, seem to fade away too easily. Many open themselves up to complete strangers, feeling safe when they see reciprocation of such behavior. This lack of discernment in communication can be just as dangerous as its opposite: completely shutting down communication closes off the fifth chakra, but throwing it all out there online or in dialogues with people on the internet whom you haven’t met in person can push you into a deceptive reality. In real life and in healthy communication, the give-and-take allows the two parties to open up gradually. Going back to the online dating example, one of the dating websites I was on years ago had an entire page on online dating etiquette, and I found it responsible and helpful. A couple of pieces of advice stuck out in particular, and I remember them to this day. The first is, communication is give-and-take. If you initiate communication, wait for the other person to respond. It’s a back-and-forth effort. Try not to dominate the conversation. The second piece of advice was a warning of what we’re exploring in this section: if a person is opening themselves up too quickly and acting as if they’re falling in love straightaway, that should be a warning sign to get away quickly.
I believe the lesson we can take away from our societal relationship with the fifth chakra is that a multifaceted approach to communication is necessary to foster healthy and honest relationships. Meeting in person is more important than a phone call or an electronic message. Remember to listen and actually hear what the other person is saying, as well as get your message across. Use the tool of asking questions and repeating back to make sure you heard properly what the other person is saying. Finally, remember that immediacy of response is not always the healthiest or for the highest good of both parties. At times, thoughtful reflection can help you and the other person get in touch with your highest truth.
Living Life in the Vishuddha Chakra
The ruling planet of the fifth chakra is the planet Jupiter. The Sanskrit word for Jupiter is guru, which means “dispeller of darkness.” Therefore, people who embody fifth chakra energy enlighten others with their speech and words. Fifth chakra people have transcended their egos in such a way that they’re in touch with their souls. They become seekers and speakers of truth. They have spent time in their heart chakra and have opened their hearts to higher spiritual knowledge. When they speak or write, they’re inspired and, in turn, inspire others. Their voices are melodious and welcomed by those who want to learn these truths.
Recognizing Fifth Chakra Imbalances
Signs that the fifth chakra is out of balance may include the Vata imbalance of talking incessantly without listening. This kind of nervous talking uses the voice out of fear of silence or fear of being alone. Another manifestation of imbalance would be using the voice to be harsh to others, such as putting a person in his or her place or being overly critical. Those out of balance can also use their voice as a weapon to hurt another person by not speaking or by yelling, screaming, or crying out loud to create drama.
Speech impediments are disorders that can limit your voice or cause frustration in speaking. A person who feels suppressed and doesn’t feel he or she has a voice can experience blockages in the fifth chakra.
Miscommunication and misunderstandings are also limitations of the fifth chakra. This often happens when two people are talking at each other rather than to each other, and when one person isn’t listening or doesn’t understand.
Take care not to misdirect your fifth chakra energy by using your newly acquired spiritual knowledge to try to convince others of your perspective. Maybe you know people who have done this with you, talking nonstop and shoving their perspective down your throat. Instead of speaking to convince, balanced fifth chakra people speak to inspire. Think of a speaker who has inspired you. Those with inspiration, which means “in spirit,” will usually talk about themselves in order to demonstrate their path toward enlightenment. It’s never about “You should do this or that” but rather “This is what I did and what I experienced.” That leaves you the space to have an aha moment. Space, akasha, which is the element of the fifth chakra, is the essential component in verbal expression. I once heard that it’s not the words in the books that make beautiful stories but the spaces in between; and it’s not the musical notes that create sweet melodies but the pauses in between those notes. It’s about space.
In the preface I mentioned having to heal my fifth chakra energy after my thyroid cancer surgery. To that end, I had to do a lot of self-reflection on how this energy had developed throughout my childhood. I’m the firstborn, and when I was five my parents divorced. However, the divorce is not my earliest memory. I have lots of memories, from as early as age three, of my parents fighting and my mom crying. I even remember giving my mom boxes of Kleenex. Through this traumatic experience, I believe I developed a habit of “being good” and not creating waves. My mom would even tell me that I was her strength. Since I had to take care of my mother’s emotions and look after my sister, I developed an inner notion that my own feelings weren’t as important. In order to heal, I had to learn to express myself. It didn’t come easily. And at times when I tried to make my voice heard, it came out as shouting. But over time I learned to be more assertive and not bottle up my feelings.
In free societies we take for granted the gifts of speaking and hearing truth. The fact that we have ears to listen and a mouth to speak is a miracle in itself. Understanding language, being able to read and write, and the gift of communication wonderfully bond us together on a deeper level than only the physical.
Being able to freely express ourselves without fear of being persecuted for our opinions, political views, or religious persuasions is a gift. I recently ran a half marathon in Washington, DC. There were spectators holding inspirational signs to help the runners keep running. Some of the signs read “If Trump can run and win, so can you” and “You can run better than the government.” I thought, How fortunate we are to live in a place where this freedom of expression exists! In another country those spectators with signs might be arrested. If you’re a female or a minority in some countries, you cannot speak your mind, vote, or even drive.
Your inner truth and voice are powerful blessings to use whenever you can.
I can easily speak my inner truth.
In order to effectively speak your truth, your throat, vocal cords, mouth, jaw, and hearing must remain healthy. Eating the wrong foods and maintaining poor posture can contribute to ineffective vocal expression. If you find speaking, singing, chanting, or projecting your voice to be challenging, the following changes may help.
First, dry mouth can be rectified by reducing caffeine and alcohol consumption and by decreasing the number of dry foods in your diet such as crackers, chips, dried fruit, and nuts. You can also keep your mouth moist and throat lubricated by swishing and gargling daily with an organic food-grade sesame oil. Take one to two teaspoons in your mouth and swish for one minute, then gargle lightly and spit it out. It will leave a light film in your mouth. You can do this before bed and you will reap the benefits of a lubricated mouth and the antibacterial effects of the sesame oil. Phlegm in your throat can be corrected by reducing cold dairy, sugar, and processed foods.
Next, sitting at a desk and staring at a computer all day can cause poor posture due to craning the neck forward to see the screen. Whenever you notice yourself in this position, make a correction: sit straight, and draw your head and shoulders back to bring your spine into better alignment.
Saying the chakra mantra sounds or other mantras out loud is great for toning the throat and strengthening the vocal cords. Singing brings about joy and can be transcendent. It’s no wonder so many of us sing in the shower or alone in the car. It brings out a side of us that is often hidden. Liberate your fifth chakra energy by singing out loud — not only in the shower or car.
Because we tend to position the neck improperly when using electronic devices, it’s very important that we stretch our necks frequently to release the tired muscles.
Sit tall with your back straight. Have your head in a neutral position with your chin neither up nor down. Rest your hands on your lap with your palms facing up. Turn your head to the right, then bring your chin down and draw a semicircle with your chin as you bring it to your left. Then bring your chin downward from the left side and draw a semicircle back to the right. Continue back and forth eight times. Next, return your head back to a centered, neutral position. Take the first two fingers of your right hand, place them on your chin, and bring your chin to your chest. Hold it there and breathe. Release your head, and repeat with your left hand.
YOGA ASANAS AND PRANAYAMA EXERCISES TO HEAL THE FIFTH CHAKRA
Try these exercises to help heal and align the Vishuddha chakra.
To view a video demo of these exercises, go to
www.youtube.com/c/MichelleFondinAuthor.
Click on the Playlists tab, and select
Chakra Healing Asanas & Pranayamas.
Scroll down the list until you find the one you’re looking for.
Ujjayi Breath: Often referred to as the ocean breath or affectionately coined the Darth Vader breath, the ujjayi breath is excellent for toning the throat and calming nerves. This breath brings heat to the body and therefore is yang in nature. To begin the ujjayi breath, sit tall and close your eyes. Pretend you’re going to fog up a pair of glasses to clean them, and exhale the word ha. Now close your lips and exhale the same way but with your mouth closed. Inhale and exhale the word ha. This results in a partial constriction of your throat. You are breathing from the lower belly, inflating the belly as you inhale and contracting it as you exhale. In the beginning, it’s difficult to inhale the word ha, but with practice it becomes easier. Once you get the hang of it, see if you can prolong each inhalation and exhalation to the count of four. Use this breathing technique anytime you’re feeling stressed.
Lion’s Breath — Simhasana: This silly-looking breath is effective at toning the throat, mouth, and jaw, and clearing out the lungs and bronchial passages. To practice the lion’s breath, sit on your heels with your knees wide open and place your hands on the floor in front of you. If it’s challenging to sit this way, you can stand and place your feet wide apart instead. Take in a deep breath through your nose, and as you exhale, open your mouth wide, stick out your tongue, and say the word ha emphasizing the h on the exhale, as if you are a lion roaring. If you want to add another physical component to complete the asana, bring up your hands and make claws as you exhale. It’s great for releasing negative energy.
Bridge Pose — Setu Bandhasana: Begin by lying on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Place your feet hip-width apart and parallel, your toes forward, and your arms alongside you with your palms facing down. Press your palms down and lift your pelvis up. If you can, bring your hands together on the mat underneath your pelvis and interlace your fingers. Walk your shoulders inward toward your spine, and lift your pelvis even higher. Look straight at the ceiling, and keep your head steady. Hold for five to ten breaths. To lower, separate your hands, bring your palms to the floor, and lower your pelvis to the ground. As a counterpose, bring both knees to your chest and roll gently side to side to massage your back. Bridge pose stimulates the thyroid, parathyroid, and thymus glands.
Shoulderstand — Salamba Sarvangasana: Shoulderstand is a more advanced pose, so if you’re a beginner, do it at a wall (see below for instructions) or with a spotter. Place a thinly folded blanket or towel on your mat, and lie down so that the blanket is underneath your head, neck, and shoulders. Bring your arms alongside you with your palms facing down. Bend your knees with your feet flat on the floor. Press your hands to the floor, and bring your legs straight into the air while lifting your lower back. Bring your hands up to support your back, and move your elbows inward toward your spine. Keep your head straight and steady; do not turn it to the side. If you would prefer to use a wall, start in the same position with your mat perpendicular to the wall. Bend your knees and place your feet against the wall. Press your feet into the wall to lift your pelvis, support your lower back with your hands, and walk your feet up the wall. If you feel stable, bring one foot away from the wall and then the other to extend the legs straight up toward the ceiling. Remain in the pose for a few breaths or a few minutes depending on your ability level. To lower, bring your bent knees toward your forehead and gently roll your back to the floor. If continuing with the sequence shown here, move on to plow pose. If you’re ready to wind down, do fish pose (matsyasana; see page 174) or reclining butterfly pose (see page 55).
Plow Pose — Halasana: To begin, lie down with a thinly folded blanket underneath your head and neck. Rest your arms alongside your torso with your palms facing down. Bend both knees with your feet flat on the floor. Press into your hands and lift your legs. With your legs joined and straight, bring them over your head until your toes touch the floor above your head. You will be folding your body completely in half. You can either leave your arms on the floor or bend your elbows and support your back with your hands. Hold the pose for several breaths. To come out of the pose, lower your knees toward your forehead and gently lower your back to the floor, one vertebrae at a time. To recover, do reclining butterfly pose (see page 55) or hug your knees to your chest, and roll your back out side to side.
Healing the Emotional and Energetic Body
For many of us, one of the hardest things to do is to speak truth. I’m not referring to telling the truth, which at times is challenging in and of itself. I’m talking about speaking your inner truth, the truth that resides within your heart. The truth that is the pure essence within your personal soul, the voice that comes from your highest Self and gives authenticity to your words. It speaks of who you are as an individual and brings light to your uniqueness in every way.
In the third and fourth chakras, your personality develops to formulate your passions and love. But it’s in the fifth chakra that these formulations are exposed to the world through your words and verbal expression.
Fear of rejection or of not fitting in may be a reason why you feel you can’t share who you are. Yet who you are is what God breathed into your soul, and you will feel balanced only when you share that with the world.
Far from being an easy task for most of us, living in truth means living authentically in every moment. When you take this to heart and put it into practice, you truly realize how incredibly challenging it is. It is humbling and ego-crushing, in a way. Unless you are consciously working at this, you aren’t generally cognizant of how much untruth can infiltrate your life. Most of the untruths aren’t harmful or pivotal to changing your destiny, but they are like little grains of sand that can build up to a mountain.
Think of the reasons why you might not tell the truth or the entire truth. Sometimes we don’t say the truth because it’s not convenient, such as telling your boss that you were late because you were stuck in traffic rather than because you got into an argument with your spouse. Or maybe the untruth comes from fear of embarrassment. For example, you accidentally schedule a date with a new hot guy on the same night as you had already committed to another date with another guy who isn’t so hot. So you lie and say you’re sick. Or perhaps you tell an untruth because you fear rejection or you feel bad for the other person. There are many reasons why you might tell an untruth, and most of them are linked to fear. Fear is a low and slow energy. Once you reach the fifth chakra your body, mind, and soul are already vibrating at a higher frequency so you can easily connect to your spiritual self. Any untruth or lie you tell inside or out will corrode the link between you and your higher self. Therefore it’s not about the bent reality that you’re telling but rather your alignment with your own integrity and the higher vibrations of truth and love.
BEING AUTHENTIC VERSUS BEING NICE
Authenticity is about lifting the false masks of your identity as a person and revealing who you are to the world. We all wear masks. Sometimes we wear the mask of someone who works, who plays, who is a spouse, friend, son, daughter, sister, brother, and so on. And we tend to wear different masks for different people. Living in the truth is about discarding all those masks and instead exposing yourself to the world as you are. People who live authentically show little difference in their attitudes and appearances no matter who is before them. Sometimes these people are referred to as “genuine and real” or even “down-to-earth.”
If, on the other hand, you are constantly worried about pleasing others or afraid of what others might think of you, you are not only wearing masks but also changing those masks depending on who is in front of you. Being nice, or people pleasing, is the antithesis of truth. It’s impossible to be genuine or authentic and be a people pleaser. If you morph into what other people want or what you think they want, you deny who you are and your needs and desires.
You can begin to counter this tendency by first finding out what you truly want, need, and desire. Get to know yourself and your true nature. For example, if you hate golf but you go golfing with the guys every weekend because you want to fit in or to climb the corporate ladder, you aren’t being true to yourself by doing it. Eventually your dislike for golfing will show through and the guys will figure out you’re just doing it to get ahead. Your actions will backfire in a way that will be disadvantageous to you.
When I was a young stay-at-home mom, I noticed that all the other moms around me spent most of their time volunteering at the elementary school and carting their kids around to several sporting teams and other extracurricular activities. I fell into the trap of wanting to be like them. I thought I should be the perfect mom and that I could achieve that by doing the things they did. I exhausted myself by volunteering my time and chauffeuring my kids to many activities. Then one day I woke up and found myself miserable. I also noticed that my kids were miserable too. All the volunteering took time away from parenting. And the overscheduling didn’t give my kids time to play and be kids. Once I realized this, I cut volunteering down to once a month and made my kids choose at most one extracurricular activity at a time. Everyone was happier when I was truthful to myself.
Try this interesting exercise. During the day, focus on your words and see if they match how you truly feel. Resist the temptation to judge or admonish yourself; just notice. You may be amazed to discover times when you don’t think you’re “stretching the truth” but you are. Keep in mind that I’m not talking about joking around or exaggerating to prove a point but rather deliberately changing the truth to mislead another person or yourself in any way. For example, if you get on the scale to weigh yourself and you weigh 160 pounds, but you tell your spouse, who asks, that the scale read 150 pounds, that’s deliberate. You might think, “Well, what’s the harm in that? It’s just a number on a scale.” That might be so, but if it weren’t a big deal, why would you change the number?
Ultimately, speaking truth and being mindful of your inner truth is about flexing a muscle so you can live a life of excellence, marked by coherence between body, mind, and spirit. The more you flex your muscles of deception, the bigger they get. And the more you flex your truthfulness muscles, the bigger those get. In the end, you have greater gains when your truthfulness muscles are flexed and toned.
Living in and speaking truth doesn’t mean you always have to tell all. It is your absolute right to say things such as “I’d rather not say,” “I’m not sure right now,” or even “Now isn’t the right time for me to express this.” If truth means you will hurt someone and that isn’t where you’d like to go with the conversation, you can always stay silent, unless staying silent means you might harm them. For example, if your friend asks you if you love her new red dress and you don’t like it at all, you could either stay silent or say something like, “I really like the flowered dress you wore last week.” You’re using a softener to avoid hurting her feelings, but you’re not lying. However, if she says to you, “What do you think about this new guy I’m dating?” And you google the guy and find out he has a police record and you don’t tell her, then you could potentially be harming her by not revealing the truth. Do you see the difference?
As you go through your day with this exercise, say to yourself, “Is what I’m about to say going to hurt my integrity in any way?” and “Will I be disconnecting from my spiritual self by saying what I’m about to say?” You’ll notice that if you can answer those questions honestly, you’ll go about your day honoring truthfulness.
Gaining the awareness of the fifth chakra is like awakening from a deep slumber. You begin to see things differently. Words spoken or written take on new meaning. As you emerge from the darkness of the lower chakras, spiritual truths seem to fall into place and link together like the pieces of a puzzle that seemed so complicated before. You may find yourself on a sudden spiritual journey, seeking to take in as much information as you possibly can. It’s an exciting time for you as you begin to wonder where all this wonderful truth has been hiding your whole life.
Have you ever read a really good book with an important message and then picked it back up several years later and gotten a completely different message? That is what it feels like to awaken to spiritual truths. An old adage says, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” At this stage of our chakra journey, we have traveled far into a spiritual plane where things just start to make sense.
You might feel that before this moment, you were like a piece of seaweed being tossed around by the waves with absolutely no control over your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and destiny. Now you’re beginning to understand that you are the ocean. How empowering it is to realize that when you align yourself with the creative force of the entire universe, everything is possible.
You are at the point in your spiritual development that you are so ecstatic you want to shout from the rooftops to everyone around you, “Don’t you see this? Don’t you understand? This is amazing!” But alas, everyone around you is not on your spiritual path, and they don’t understand. They are like you were before you awakened. In the beginning, it can be frustrating. You want to share all this wonderful knowledge. You want others to see that we are not our bodies but spiritual beings having a human experience. With the knowledge gained from your heart chakra, you can reach back in and have compassion for those who have not yet seen what you see.
Your faith grows by leaps and bounds as you test out this new spiritual awareness. You may be shy to share your joy, but it’s necessary that you do so in order to share these spiritual truths with others, just as they were shared with you.
Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Bring your attention and awareness to the area of your throat. If it’s chilly in the room, cover your throat with a warm scarf. Or if you prefer, you can use your hands: crisscross your hands to make the shape of a butterfly, and gently place your palms against your throat. This will bring warmth and healing energy to the fifth chakra. Set the intention to bring healing to your neck, throat, thyroid gland, parathyroid glands, jaw, mouth, tongue, vocal cords, and ears. As you settle in to relaxing all these parts of your body, ask the question, “How do I know my inner truth?” By simply asking the question, you’ll find that the answers will appear. Then bring your awareness back to the word truth. Ask your higher self to access your inner truth.
Bring to your awareness different aspects of your life, and continue to ask your higher self, “What is my inner truth here?” Start with the most important things in your life, such as your family, friends, and other relationships, then go to your personal health and well-being, continually asking yourself, “What is my inner truth here?” Next, expand outward to your work or career, and ask yourself, “What is my inner truth here?” Then go to your passions, gifts, and talents: “What is my inner truth here?” Next, consider the material items in your life — finances, money, home, cars, and other material goods — and ask yourself, “What is my inner truth here?” Finally, go to your spirituality, your beliefs, your ideals, your values, and ask, “What is my inner truth here?” Take some time to go over other areas of your life that come up for you now, repeating the same question: “What is my inner truth here?”
Listen to what comes up. Acknowledge it with a nod. Try not to judge whatever comes to you in this conversation with your higher self. When you’re finished, thank your higher self for all the insight. You can seal the meditation by chanting the mantra sound HUM three times.
When you feel ready, you can slowly open your eyes and return to activity. Since this guided meditation has brought you some revelations, you may want to write down what came to you during the meditation.
ENERGY-BODY HEALING WITH GEMS AND COLORS
The color sky blue is associated with the fifth chakra.
Lapis lazuli, known as the “stone of truth,” is great for speaking your truth. You can also use aquamarine and turquoise. You can wear or hold to your throat chakra the stones blue kyanite and blue iolite to help enhance clairaudient or psychic hearing abilities.
Fifth Chakra Mindfulness Ideas to Ponder
1. When I communicate with others, I will keep in mind that it’s not the words that create beautiful stories, but the spaces between the words. And it’s not the musical notes that create melodious music, but the pauses between the notes. I’m creating space in my communication. I’m pausing, listening fully, and allowing the space to create beautiful conversations.
2. Revealing my inner truth is the only way to authenticity.
3. Honesty is the way I express my self-love and my integrity.
4. I remain open to all forms of communication, and I honor others’ needs to express themselves in many ways.
5. As I live more in truth, more truth will be revealed to me.
