Understanding the 7 Chakras: Your Complete Guide to Energy Healing and Balance
When I began working with the chakra system years ago, I discovered something profound: these seven energy centers aren't just abstract spiritual concepts. They're tangible points where physical symptoms, emotional patterns, and spiritual disconnection show up in your body.
If you're an empath who absorbs everyone's emotions, a pet owner with an anxious animal, or simply someone who feels stuck despite trying everything, understanding your chakras can be the missing piece that transforms your wellbeing.
What Are Chakras?
Chakras are energy centers in your body that influence your physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. The word "chakra" comes from Sanskrit and means "wheel" or "disk," describing how these centers spin and process energy.
This system has guided healing traditions for thousands of years, originating in ancient India and documented in texts called the Vedas. While the concept may seem esoteric, the effects are remarkably practical.
Think of your chakra system as seven processing centers along your spine. When energy flows freely through these centers, you feel balanced and vital. When a chakra becomes blocked or imbalanced, it creates disruption—like a clog in a stream affecting everything downstream.
You might experience this as physical symptoms in specific areas of your body, recurring emotional patterns you can't seem to shift, or a persistent sense that something is "off" without knowing why.
Why Chakras Matter (Especially for Empaths and Sensitive Souls)
If you're reading this, you might be:
An empath who absorbs others' emotions without meaning to
A pet owner noticing your animal's anxiety or behavioral changes
Someone seeking deeper spiritual connection and inner peace
Feeling stuck in certain areas of life without understanding why
Experiencing physical symptoms that conventional approaches haven't resolved
Here's what I've learned through years of chakra work in my Reiki practice:
Your chakras are entry points for energy—both your own and energy from your environment. Understanding how they function helps you see patterns that may have puzzled you for years:
Why crowds leave you feeling depleted (your chakras process all that external energy)
Why your anxious pet won't settle (animals have chakras too, and theirs can become blocked)
Why certain emotions or physical symptoms keep returning (specific chakra imbalances create predictable patterns)
How to maintain your energetic boundaries while staying open-hearted
The 7 Main Chakras: Your Energy Centers Explained
Each chakra governs specific aspects of your physical, emotional, and spiritual experience. Understanding these connections helps you identify where imbalances might be affecting your daily life.
🔴 Root Chakra (Muladhara)
Location: Base of the spine
Color: Red
Element: Earth
Governs: Safety, security, survival, grounding
When Balanced:
You feel grounded, stable, and confident in meeting your fundamental needs. You trust your place in the world and your ability to take care of yourself.
When Blocked:
Chronic anxiety and fear
Financial insecurity or obsessive worry about money
Feeling disconnected from your physical body
Digestive issues, problems with legs, feet, or lower back
In pets: fearfulness, territorial behavior, food aggression, excessive marking
For Empaths:
When you absorb everyone else's anxiety, your root chakra processes that fear as if it were your own. This makes it nearly impossible to stay grounded in your body. You're literally trying to hold yourself steady while carrying the weight of others' insecurity.
For Pet Owners:
Excessive barking, hiding, or hypervigilance in your pet often signals root chakra imbalance. Animals with blocked root chakras don't feel safe in their environment—even when they objectively are. Learn more about Animal Reiki for anxious pets →
🟠 Sacral Chakra (Svadhisthana)
Location: Lower abdomen, about 2 inches below the navel
Color: Orange
Element: Water
Governs: Creativity, pleasure, emotions, sexuality, flow
When Balanced:
You move through life's changes with flexibility and grace. You experience genuine joy in relationships and creative expression. Your emotions flow through you naturally without becoming stuck or overwhelming.
When Blocked:
Loss of creative spark or passion for activities that once brought joy
Emotional numbness or overwhelming emotional reactivity
Difficulty experiencing pleasure or connection in relationships
Reproductive or sexual health concerns
In pets: lack of playfulness, withdrawal from social bonding, listlessness
For Empaths:
When you absorb others' emotional pain day after day, your sacral chakra becomes saturated. Some empaths respond by shutting down emotionally as a survival mechanism—feeling numb or disconnected. Others experience the opposite: emotions flood through constantly, making it impossible to discern which feelings are actually yours.
For Pet Owners:
A pet who has stopped playing, seems emotionally withdrawn, or no longer engages with their pack (whether human or animal) likely has sacral chakra imbalance. In healthy animals, playfulness and social connection are natural expressions of balanced sacral energy.
🟡 Solar Plexus Chakra (Manipura)
Location: Upper abdomen, above the navel
Color: Yellow
Element: Fire
Governs: Personal power, confidence, willpower, self-esteem
When Balanced:
You feel confident in your choices and capable of directing your own life. You set boundaries that honor both yourself and others. You trust your ability to handle what comes your way.
When Blocked:
Persistent low self-esteem or self-doubt
Difficulty making decisions, even small ones
People-pleasing behaviors and inability to set boundaries
Digestive issues—your gut literally can't process what it's holding
In pets: dominance struggles, digestive problems, timidity or over-aggression
For Empaths:
This is where most empaths absorb others' stress and anxiety. Your solar plexus sits in your gut—the same place you feel that knot when you walk into a tense room. When you're processing everyone else's anxiety as if it were your own, this chakra becomes overloaded. You lose your sense of personal power and find yourself unable to say no, even when every part of you wants to.
For Pet Owners:
Digestive issues combined with confidence problems in your pet often point to solar plexus imbalance. This pattern is especially common in rescue animals who have experienced powerlessness or lack of control over their circumstances.
💚 Heart Chakra (Anahata)
Location: Center of the chest
Color: Green (or pink)
Element: Air
Governs: Love, compassion, connection, forgiveness
When Balanced:
You give and receive love with equal ease. You feel genuine connection to yourself, others, and the natural world. Self-compassion comes naturally, not as something you have to force.
When Blocked:
Difficulty receiving love, even when it's offered freely
Holding onto resentment or past hurt
Feeling isolated or emotionally disconnected
Physical issues with heart or lungs
In pets: separation anxiety, inability to bond with new family members, protective aggression
For Empaths:
Many empaths have heart chakras that are too open—you feel everyone's pain so deeply that you sacrifice your own wellbeing in the process. Balancing your heart chakra doesn't mean building walls or closing yourself off. It means learning to hold love and compassion for others while maintaining enough boundary to protect your own heart.
For Pet Owners:
Separation anxiety in animals often stems from heart chakra imbalance. They're so deeply bonded to you that they can't self-regulate when you leave. Their nervous system becomes dysregulated because their heart energy is entirely enmeshed with yours. Animal Reiki focused on the heart chakra helps them maintain connection while developing their own center.
🗣️ Throat Chakra (Vishuddha)
Location: Throat area
Color: Blue
Element: Sound/Ether
Governs: Communication, self-expression, truth, authenticity
When Balanced:
You speak your truth with both clarity and kindness. You express your needs without apologizing for having them. You listen deeply to others while maintaining your own authentic voice.
When Blocked:
Difficulty speaking up for yourself
Fear of judgment or conflict that keeps you silent
Chronic throat issues or thyroid imbalances
Saying yes when you mean no
In pets: excessive vocalization (barking, meowing, whining) or unusual silence
For Empaths:
How many times have you swallowed your truth to avoid conflict? Empaths often develop blocked throat chakras because speaking up carries a double burden: not only the discomfort of potential conflict, but also the certainty that you'll feel and absorb the other person's disappointment or anger. It becomes easier to stay silent than to deal with both your feelings and theirs.
For Pet Owners:
Excessive barking, meowing, or whining—or the opposite, a normally vocal pet suddenly going quiet—can indicate throat chakra imbalance. Animals communicate through this energy center just as humans do. The expression may look different, but the principle is the same.
💙 Third Eye Chakra (Ajna)
Location: Between the eyebrows
Color: Indigo
Element: Light
Governs: Intuition, insight, imagination, wisdom
When Balanced:
You trust your intuitive insights without needing external validation. You perceive patterns and connections that aren't immediately obvious. You access inner wisdom with clarity and confidence.
When Blocked:
Difficulty trusting your intuition or inner knowing
Lack of imagination or inability to envision possibilities
Mental fog or confusion
Chronic headaches or vision problems
In pets: lack of environmental awareness, disorientation, diminished ability to sense danger or changes
For Empaths:
Your third eye is likely naturally active—this heightened perception is part of what makes you empathic. But when this chakra is imbalanced, you lose the ability to distinguish between your own intuitive insights and thoughts or feelings you've absorbed from others. Everything blurs together, and you can't tell what's true guidance versus what's simply energy you've picked up.
For Pet Owners:
Does your pet know when you're coming home before you arrive? Do they sense changes in household energy or anticipate events? That's a healthy, clear third eye chakra at work. Animals are naturally intuitive beings—when this energy center is balanced, that gift flows freely.
💜 Crown Chakra (Sahasrara)
Location: Top of the head
Color: Violet or white
Element: Thought/Consciousness
Governs: Spiritual connection, enlightenment, divine wisdom
When Balanced:
You feel connected to something larger than yourself. You experience moments of peace, clarity, and unity with the world around you. Life has meaning that extends beyond daily tasks.
When Blocked:
Feeling spiritually disconnected or empty
Cynicism or purely materialistic worldview
Lack of purpose or meaning in life
Sense of isolation from the divine or universal energy
In pets: lethargy, profound disconnection from their human, loss of spirit
For Empaths:
When your crown chakra is open and balanced, you remember something essential: you're not just a receiver of everyone else's energy. You're connected to infinite wisdom and divine source. This connection provides perspective that helps you rise above the overwhelm of constant absorption. You remember that you're more than what you're feeling in any given moment.
For Pet Owners:
Animals have profound spiritual connections, though we often overlook this. When their crown chakra is balanced, they're peaceful, content, and connected to you on a soul level. They rest in a state of being that many humans spend lifetimes trying to achieve.
How I Work with Chakras in My Healing Practice
In my Intuitive Wellness Sessions here in Des Moines, I combine Usui Reiki and crystal energy to assess and balance your chakra system.
Through years of practice, I've developed the ability to sense where energy is flowing freely and where it's blocked or stagnant. My hands can feel the quality of each chakra—whether it's spinning in the wrong direction, completely blocked, or flowing in balanced harmony.
What often surprises clients is discovering what lies beneath these energetic patterns:
Emotional experiences from years ago that created lasting blocks
Physical tension that has solidified into energetic resistance
Energy absorbed from others (especially common for empaths)
Spiritual disconnection that manifests as physical symptoms
Generational patterns passed down through family lines
We work together to identify and clear these blocks. Many clients experience moments of sudden clarity during sessions—finally understanding why certain patterns have persisted in their lives despite their best efforts to change them.
Assessing Your Own Chakra Health
Wondering which of your chakras need attention right now?
To maintain optimal energy flow and wellbeing, it's important to regularly check in with your chakra system.
Just like you schedule regular health check-ups, setting aside time for chakra assessment can help you identify and address imbalances before they become more significant issues.
I've created a comprehensive Chakra Wellness Assessment Workbook that helps you:
✨ Identify exactly which chakras need attention - Through detailed questionnaires for each chakra
✨ Track your progress over time - Monthly tracking sheets to see how your energy shifts
✨ Understand the "why" behind your struggles - Connect physical, emotional, and spiritual symptoms to specific chakras
✨ Take action with personalized practices - Each assessment includes specific healing techniques
This workbook is perfect whether you're:
New to chakra work and want to understand your energy system
An empath learning which chakras are most vulnerable
A pet owner wanting to understand your own chakras before working with your animal
Someone working with me in sessions who wants to track progress
A wellness practitioner wanting tools for clients
Chakra Healing: DIY vs. Professional Support
You CAN work with your own chakras at home:
Daily meditation focusing on each chakra
Self-assessment using tools like the workbook
Color therapy (wearing chakra colors)
Yoga poses that activate specific chakras
Breathwork and visualization
BUT sometimes you need professional support:
When you can't "feel" where the blocks are
When imbalances persist despite DIY efforts
When you need someone to sense exactly what's going on energetically
When you're an empath constantly reabsorbing energy
When you want intuitive guidance on WHY the block exists
In my Des Moines practice, I work with clients throughout Iowa and worldwide (via distance sessions) to provide that professional chakra clearing and balancing.
Book an Intuitive Wellness Session →
Intuitive Wellness Sessions include:
Full chakra assessment using Reiki and intuitive sensing
Clearing of blocked or overactive chakras
Crystal energy work tailored to your needs
Intuitive messages about root causes
Personalized practices to maintain balance at home
Investment: Starting at $105 per session, sliding scale available upon request. Cash option for established clients.
Location: In-studio (Des Moines area), house calls, or distance sessions via Google Meet
Serving: Des Moines, Clive, Urbandale, West Des Moines, Indianola, and worldwide
Chakra Healing for Your Pets
Yes, animals have chakras too!
If you have a pet who's anxious, recovering from illness, or showing behavioral issues, their chakras might be blocked.
In my Animal Reiki practice, I work with:
Dogs and cats (small animal sessions)
Horses and farm animals (large animal sessions)
Common issues that respond beautifully to chakra balancing:
Anxiety and fearfulness (root and heart chakras)
Digestive issues (solar plexus chakra)
Aggression or dominance problems (solar plexus and throat chakras)
Separation anxiety (heart chakra)
Post-surgery or illness recovery (all chakras)
Interesting connection: If YOU'RE an empath with imbalanced chakras, your pet might be absorbing YOUR energy and developing their own imbalances. Healing yourself can actually help heal your pet.
Ready to Begin Your Chakra Healing Journey?
Whether you're an empath learning to maintain boundaries, a pet owner with an anxious animal, or someone feeling stuck despite trying everything—your chakras hold essential information about where healing needs to happen.
You can start with home practices and the Chakra Assessment Workbook to identify imbalances, or work directly with me for professional clearing that reaches deeper layers. Most people benefit from both: regular self-care practices supported by occasional professional sessions.
Your Next Steps
Start with Assessment:
Get the Chakra Wellness Assessment Workbook to identify which chakras need attention
Download the Workbook ($33.11) →
Book a Session:
Work with me 1:1 for professional chakra balancing in Des Moines or via distance
Book Intuitive Wellness Session ($115) →
Help Your Pet:
Animal Reiki sessions balance your pet's chakras and ease anxiety
Learn About Animal Reiki →
Are You an Empath?:
Take the free quiz to understand your sensitivity and get personalized recommendations
Take the Empath Quiz →
Deeper Transformation:
Explore multi-session Package Programs for ongoing chakra maintenance
View Transformation Packages →
Continue Your Chakra Journey
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