Inversions to Activate
Upper Chakras
It may sound silly, but getting upside down brings the prana to your upper chakras. When the upper chakras are activated and flowing, we have access the higher frequency emotional states that allow us to perceive intuitively. As we aim to open the third eye, we need the upper chakras activated. An inversion is a body position we hold where our heart is above our head. It basically means being upside down, and there are ways you can do that without having to do advanced acrobatic types of poses, as you will see. The throat chakra, third eye chakra, and crown chakra all get blood flow and prana with these poses, which will help activate your psychic abilities. Make a habit of doing these poses each day, and you’ll find you start seeing synchronicities and getting a better sense for how someone is feeling before they even say something.
For each of these poses, it will be just as important that you breathe slowly and deeply through your nose as it is to do the actual pose. If you’ve ever taken a yoga class, you probably noticed the teacher talked about breathing the whole time. That is because your prana enters the body with the inhale. Prana is life-force energy, also known as chi. It is the energy that runs through us like electricity, and it is the same energy that flows through nature. It contains blueprints of creation and life-generating healing power that can help heal and transform our world and personal life.
When we are stressed, it drains our prana. The best way to reboot our energy is breathing because prana enters the body with the oxygen we breathe in. That energy helps boost your chakras so you can start to strengthen your energy. It’s like food for your psychic powers.
If you’re menstruating, it’s best not to do inversions for the first three days. This break allows gravity to work for you in the release that is happening in your body. Yoga is a system that helps you work with nature and with your body. It harmonizes you to the natural cycles of your body and the planet.
Let’s start with one of the most well-known poses: downward-facing dog.
Downward-Facing Dog
Chakras Activated: throat, third eye, crown
Enter the Pose:
1 You can start on hands and knees, with your hands directly under your shoulders and knees directly under your hips.
2 Spread your fingers wide and create two L shapes with your thumbs and pointer fingers. When you’re in the pose, you’ll press into these fingers to help displace the weight of your body.
3 Take a few breaths in and out of your nose to come into your body before moving on. Feel your fingers on the ground and your toes on the ground.
4 On an inhale, lift your hips so you create a triangle with your body. Your arms and torso are hopefully in one diagonal line, and you can work on straightening those legs and bringing your heels closer to the ground.
5 Go ahead and relax your neck so your head will just hang. You do not want your back to arch in this position. You’ll feel a nice stretch in the backs of your legs. Don’t force anything or push to the point of sharp pain. Flexibility will come over time. Take your time in this position and move so the pose is active. You can move into some of the stiffness as you breathe and find little areas that can be stretched.
Exit the Pose:
1 To come out of the pose, you can bring your knees back to the ground.
2 Rest your forehead onto the floor and sit on your heels. This is a good resting pose to catch your breath in before moving on.
Duration: At first you may want to hold downward-facing dog for 3–5 breaths. Later you can increase the amount of time in the pose from 1–5 minutes.
Modifications: If the pose hurts your wrists, make fists so you don’t have to bend the wrists. If you can’t put pressure on your wrists due to injury or carpel tunnel, do the pose with your elbows and forearms on the ground, which is a variation called dolphin pose.
The crown chakra is your access point to other spiritual beings and guides. It’s also your access point to your own higher self and soul. The communication you will be able to have with spirits requires this chakra to be active. Because blood will also be flowing through the throat chakra and the third eye chakra, more prana will be delivered to all of the upper chakras with this one position. You could very well start your yoga practice with this one pose and do it five times in the morning and five times in the evening. Hold it for five to ten breaths each time and rest in between for thirty seconds to a minute. After doing inversions, you never want to stand up quickly because you can get a head rush and black out. You’re especially susceptible to this if you are dehydrated. As a rule, always come up slowly and breathe in yoga. Never stand up fast even if you know you’ve been drinking enough water.
This may feel difficult at first, but the more you practice it, the easier it will be. You’ll build up little muscles in your hands and wrists that will keep you from having a hard time. Many people say it hurts their wrists at first, but that will go away with practice. Do your best and take breaks as you need to. Don’t get discouraged if you find the pose difficult today. The cool thing about yoga is that you will keep making small progress over time and before you know it, the things that were really hard won’t bother you, and you can focus more on your intuition than on just holding the pose. For today, though, we are just going to get to know the pose.
Chakras Activated: heart, throat, third eye, crown
Enter the Pose:
1 This pose is done by lying on your back.
2 Become aware of your body. Breathe slowly and deeply through your nose. Feel where your body connects to the ground at your sit bones, calves, heels, shoulders, head, and arms. This part where you become present is actually very helpful in developing psychic abilities because it brings your attention fully into the moment, which will allow you to perceive much more.
3 Bend your knees so your heels are close to or touching your backside. Place your feet flat on the floor with your feet only as wide as your hips. Place your hands palms down next to your hips.
4 As you inhale through your nose, slowly lift your hips and see if your chest will meet your chin. As you’re in this pose, do not look side to side to protect your neck.
5 If your shoulders will let you, interlace hands underneath you and walk your shoulder blades toward each other. Watch your belly rise and fall with each breath.
6 Keep your knees pulling toward each other so they don’t flail out to the side.
Exit the Pose:
1 Unlace your hands and slowly lower your hips to the ground.
2 Slightly tuck your tailbone to neutralize your spine.
3 Rest for 30 seconds to a minute and then lift yourself up again, breathing slowly and deeply through your nose.
Duration: Hold the pose for 3–5 rounds of breath. Repeat this sequence 6–10 times, depending on your level of physical fitness.
Modifications: An alternate expression of the pose is the restorative version. You can fold blankets and slide them under your hips or use a block. In this version, relax your body instead of engaging your muscles, and stay in the pose for 3–5 minutes.
Bridge pose helps the body remove toxins that may be calcifying the pineal gland. The lymph is fluid that flows through the lymphatic system and collects bacteria, which is then filtered through the lymph nodes. As you invert in this position, it helps move the lymph with gravity. This also helps your heart by lowering cholesterol and high blood pressure. Anxiety is calmed by this position so you can be calm enough to notice your intuition, which is already there. In the development of your psychic abilities, you may find sometimes you have too many thoughts blocking you and you may feel your mind is scattered. This pose will help reduce scattered thinking.
Fun Fact: The third eye is actually the pineal gland, which becomes calcified by nanobacteria forming crystals around themselves to protect themselves from your immune system. It can be decalcified by removing fluoride from your diet and introducing fermented foods, garlic, lemon, cilantro, and other plants.
Chakras Activated: throat, third eye, crown
Enter the Pose:
1 Begin standing with your feet hip-distance apart and your feet pointing directly forward. Stand up tall and begin breathing deeply in and out of your nose. Lift your toes and spread them before placing them back down and gripping the floor. Feel your feet on the floor and lean forward and then backward.
2 Equally balance your weight in the front and back of your feet. Feel rooted to the earth.
3 As you inhale, grow taller through the top of your spine. As you exhale, lean forward, bringing your hands to the ground if possible.
4 Relax your neck so your head hangs heavy, and then grab opposite elbows to let yourself hang. The weight of your torso will begin to decompress your spine. Keep breathing slowly and deeply.
Exit the Pose:
1 After 3–5 breaths, without rushing, slowly start to come back up. Breathe slowly and move slowly.
Duration: Hold the position for 3–5 rounds of breath. Repeat 3–5 of these total.
Modifications: Pregnant women can separate the legs wide enough to allow the stomach to fit between the legs. If your hamstrings are extremely tight, you can support yourself with your hands on your legs or place a block or two under your hands to raise the floor to you. If you have trouble balancing, do the pose with your back to a wall.
If you find this pose difficult because of tight back muscles or hamstrings, have patience. Each day you’ll have a little bit more flexibility, and it’s not about being super flexible anyway. There’s no competition or prize for the most perfect pose. The inversion itself is helping you activate the upper chakras. This position seems simple, but it does a lot for your brain health and spine. The central nerve channel is what the kundalini energy runs along from the base of the spine. For optimal psychic awareness, that energy needs to be able to move through the channel. Your spinal alignment and flexibility are directly tied to your psychic abilities. If there is pain in your back due to compression, it makes meditation difficult. If there is misalignment, it blocks the flow of energy.
Fun Fact: The reason sun salutations are usually done in the morning are because they help energize you for the day.
Chakras Activated: throat, third eye, crown
Enter the Pose:
1 Begin on your back and just take a moment to start slowing your breathing. Breathe only through the nose and feel your ribs expand as you inhale and contract as you exhale. Feel the stomach expand and rise as you inhale and move toward the spine as you exhale. You’re getting to know your body better by paying attention to these details, and it will help your psychic development.
2 Now bring your feet up as if you were going to stand on the ceiling. Keep your legs together and try to straighten them. Place your hands palms down next to your hips, as you did in bridge pose.
3 Lift your hips and hold them up with your elbows on the ground. You’re basically holding your lower back with your palms. Ideally, your shoulders, hips, and feet are in one line and your chin connects to your chest, but that may take time. It’s very important you do not look side to side in this position as there is weight on your cervical spine, the smaller vertebrae in the neck.
Exit the Pose:
1 Breathe slowly and deeply for about a minute. Come down slowly.
2 Relax on your back to let the spine neutralize.
Duration: Hold for 3–5 breaths when starting out. Work up to holding for one minute. Repeat the posture 3–5 times.
Modifications: If you have trouble lifting your hips, just bring your feet up so they are in line with your hips as much as possible. It may also help to fold a blanket and place it under your back so your head can rest on the ground.
Sometimes you’ll get information from someone else’s energy field and you’ll feel it in your body. This type of awareness will heighten your sensory perception. There are many types of psychic abilities, and some people find that feeling other people’s energy comes first. As you practice yoga, you may find you feel something when someone is around you. If it’s a new feeling, it’s probably theirs! Always check in with your intuition or ask if they want to talk before blurting out things. Always be kind, and don’t brag or try to impress people with your psychic abilities.
Fun Fact: Traditional yogis grow their hair to increase intuition because the hair acts as energetic antennae. Native American tribes have the same tradition, with some saying that they hunt better when their hair is long.
Chakras Activated: heart, throat, third eye, crown
Enter the Pose:
1 Start by coming onto all fours. Bring your hands directly under your shoulders and knees right below each hip.
2 Start by taking a few deep breaths in and out of your nose.
3 Walk your hands forward, keeping your arms no wider than your shoulders. Press your heart toward the ground and feel the stretch on the deltoids, which are the tops of the shoulders. Breathe slowly and deeply through your nose and keep your hips stacked directly over your knees. Eventually, your chest and chin will rest on the ground.
4 Feel as if you are melting into the floor. The more you relax, the more the tension in your connective tissue surrounding the muscles will relax.
5 Now we will work on visualizing chakras while you’re in the pose. Continue breathing deeply and slowly in and out of your nose. In your mind’s eye, picture green energy flowing around your heart chakra as you breathe. Bring all your focus to this green energy swirling clockwise around your chest. It is vibrant and strong. Sense that it is helping heal and lift any sadness from your heart as you exhale. Feel joy entering your heart with each inhale.
6 Bring your focus to the throat chakra. Picture blue energy swirling around your throat and freeing up any blocks you may have in regards to sharing your ideas or communicating clearly. Feel the energy from the heart connect to the energy at the throat.
Exit the Pose:
1 Walk your hands back up to a tabletop position and rest sitting on your heels.
2 Notice how you feel after stretching those big joints.
Duration: When you first do the pose, it may feel intense, so hold it 3–5 breaths. Eventually, stay in this position for 3–5 minutes and relax into it.
Modifications: The more relaxed version of the pose may be more accessible to those with a shoulder injury. You can fold a few blankets or stack up some pillows under your chest to take pressure off of your shoulder joints. Alternatively, you may try this standing and bring your hands to the wall at the height of your hips. Keep your arms straight and you’ll feel the stretch in your shoulders.
The shoulders store a lot of emotions that can be released in this pose, and you’re also activating the heart chakra. When you’re stretching and breathing deeply, you may find that you cry; this is always a good release of blocked energy. The deeper you breathe, the more you will clear, and this will increase your psychic ability. If you’re clouded with many emotional memories, it’s hard to clearly perceive with your third eye. Much of the physical poses and breathing linked to the movement will help you clear your emotional memories that are stored in the organs and cells. This process happens over time and is a daily reset that helps you be clear like a clairvoyant. It’s a process that gets better over time.
It’s important to mention that the heart is the area where we hold grief, sadness, loss, envy, and self-hatred, and it must be activated to access the upper chakras through which we connect to spirit and our soul. The heart chakra is the largest chakra, and many yoga poses target the heart chakra. In Chapter 8 you’ll learn poses that specifically target the heart chakra. The visualization we did is a great starting point for both clearing your chakras and using your psychic vision, which can both perceive energy and send energy. When we develop our ability to visualize, we are also opening our third eye to being able to receive images.
Chakras Activated: throat, third eye, crown
Enter the Pose:
1 Come to your hands and knees and then sit on your heels, if possible.
2 Place your hands on the floor with your fingers spread wide to improve stability. You’ll make a triangle between your hands and your head on the floor.
3 Come to your toes on the ground as you set up the base for your headstand. Your hands can be slightly wider than your shoulders or in line with your shoulders, depending on what feels comfortable for you.
4 On the shelf created by the back of your arms, place one knee and then the other knee. This may be enough for you—you do not need to straighten your legs until you’re comfortable, and that could be in days, weeks, or years. Just do what you’re comfortable with. It’s helpful to have a wall—not a glass door!—behind you to help as a spotter and to make you more relaxed about balancing upside down. It’s important that you keep weight on your hands so all the weight is not on your neck. You’ll want a mat under your head as it can hurt on the bare floor.
5 If you feel ready, after you’ve taken a few deep breaths in the position with your legs resting on your arms, engage your core. While keeping your leg muscles and glutes engaged, slowly bring your hips over your shoulders and then, while breathing, slowly straighten your legs. Most people have a tendency to hold their breath when they are new to an inversion because they are nervous, so remind yourself to breathe. Once you’ve done the pose daily for a while, your nerves will get used to being upside down and you’ll be able to focus on engaging certain muscles so you can stabilize the pose.
Exit the Pose:
1 When you’re ready to come down, bend your knees and slowly lower them in a tuck back to your arms.
2 Before lifting your head back above your heart when you come out of headstand, rest your forehead on the ground in child’s pose for about 30 seconds, breathing slowly, so the blood can slowly return to the rest of the body. This can help keep you from getting light-headed and reduce the risk of blacking out, which can happen if you’re dehydrated.
Duration: Eventually the pose can be held for a few minutes.
Modifications: This is a more advanced pose, but with a little practice against a wall, most people can do it.
This position helps you activate a connection with the other realms of consciousness. Yogis often focus on connecting to the deceased spirit of prior gurus who can give them advice from the other side. Once you activate the crown chakra and third eye chakra, you will start to hear, see, and know things from the other dimensions. It’s actually such a common skill and almost everyone knows a person in their family that has been able to sense spirits their whole life. When you first start sensing them, they may initially show up in your dreams.
Remember that the breathing in the pose is just as important as the pose itself. When you breathe slowly and deeply through the nose, it sends prana to the chakra, which will activate it. Although you do not see prana, you will eventually start to feel it. You may get feelings in your head that feel like a dopamine release or a really euphoric sensation that shows your energy is beginning to open up.
You never want to rush into or out of the pose. Pay attention to your whole body when you enter the pose and come out of it. This not only makes it much safer, it helps you tune into the energy in your body and can help you know when to pull back if you’re close to an injury. Yoga injuries can happen if we get focused on egotistical goals of proving we can do it instead of focusing on listening to our body.
Fun Fact: Yogis fast on new and full moons to help cleanse the body and tune into their intuition as a ritual. The new and full moon energies make it easier to tap into intuition.
Intuition Check-In
After doing these inversion exercises, grab a journal and sit quietly. Notice how your body feels and bring your attention to the third eye. Notice any thoughts or ideas that arise and write them down.
Next, sit quietly and write down what your heart tells you will help your intuition development. This can come to you as a feeling, an image, or even as words. Just relax and see what shows up.
Get in the habit of journaling like this after you do some yoga poses so you start to notice the shifts in your awareness.