ROOT CHAKRA (RED)
Our Fear Triggers and Right to Exist
When we are in fear, some aspect of us feels like we don’t have the right to even exist in a specific time and space. This limits our ability to show up in our lives in many ways, usually related to the basic survival mode of the mind/body connection. Our root Chakra energy is inherently connected to our earliest versions of ourselves, often preverbal awareness when we needed round-the-clock care as babes.
When we begin to see and heal what triggers our primal, old-brain fear response, we can show up in our lives differently and are not afraid that we will somehow not be enough by simply existing.
Mantra to counter our Root Chakra fear triggers
Right now, I am enough.
SACRAL CHAKRA (ORANGE)
Our Guilt Triggers and Right to Feel
In general, misplaced or excessive guilt triggers make us feel like we don’t deserve to feel what we honestly feel, to be worthy of care/caring, or to have fun and enjoy life. Guilt triggers stop our innate creative impulses and instinctual expressions that come with not only sexuality but also our ability to feel nurtured, to have our emotional needs met, and to experience ecstatic joy in many areas of our lives.
We heal our guilt triggers by nurturing an atmosphere of creativity, enjoyment, and the ability to feel pleasure. We also enjoy life’s fun moments, free from feeling excessive or debilitating self-consciousness.
Mantra to counter our Sacral Chakra guilt triggers:
I deserve to enjoy what I feel.
SOLAR CHAKRA (YELLOW)
Our Shame Triggers and Right to Act
Often, shame triggers hit us when we act in a way that triggers someone else. As we mature, we learn that we don’t have to feel shame when how we act makes others uncomfortable (as long as our actions and accomplishments are not encroaching on another’s well-being). Shame comes from comparing one person’s actions or capabilities with another in a way that makes us feel like we either can’t measure up, no matter how hard we try, or that we cannot change enough to act in ways that will help us succeed.
When we have lived in chronic shame patterns, we tend to respond in two ego-driven ways:
- We shut the ego completely down and cease acting out.
- We overly exert our ego-driven will/drive in unhealthy ways that encroach on others.
We heal our shame triggers and embrace our ability to change our actions in ways we independently choose by recognizing that shame cannot come from within us. We feel shame most when we get stuck from handing our power over to others or chronically trying to swipe another’s light, using either too much of our ego or not enough. Recognizing our response to shame triggers takes practice and the ability to learn, change, and act in more awakened, proactive ways in all areas of our lives.
Mantra to counter our Solar Chakra shame triggers:
I hold the power to change.
HEART CHAKRA (GREEN)
Grief Triggers and Right to Give/Receive Love
At the heart, we need equanimity, the Eastern word for feeling equal to things or happiness.
When our hearts don’t get a regular opportunity to give and receive love, by spending too much time in the lower Chakras stuck in too much grief or avoiding it altogether in the upper Chakras, the struggle for balance over time can begin engulfing the soul. Being stuck or overwhelmed in grief makes it much harder to express love and feel a sense of worth and value that comes with the heart Chakra. Over time, excessive grief patterns can give rise to sequestering our hearts from feeling capable of giving or receiving love. What started out as a sacred sanctuary to express love in loss eventually enshrines us in our grief, and we forget how to live any other way.
We heal our grief triggers by being present—balancing our past losses with feeling gratitude in the present as we learn that living well with grief is a sacred thread to vitality that brings us more alive. Living is in and of itself an act of gratefulness. In the words of the Benedictine Monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast: “We may not be able to be grateful for everything, but in every moment we can feel gratefulness.”
We begin to feel wholehearted when we cultivate patience and care incrementally in our grief with a sense of gratefulness. When it comes to grief triggers, we don’t grow beyond them; the container of who we are grows around them. Our capacity for how we hold our grief comes from a greater understanding of love and completeness.
When we learn to honor our grief triggers, even as we carry our griefs and losses, it creates openheartedness that allows us to be more fully present with all layers of self and others.
Mantra to counter our Heart Chakra grief triggers:
My heart beats full of gratitude.
THROAT CHAKRA (AZURE BLUE)
Our Corruption Triggers and Right to Voice
Our voice and ability to listen are tied to our integrity.
When we lie to ourselves, the truth can become our trigger. When we lie to others, we use our voice out of context and are then stuck having to maintain the lie, leading to additional layers of corruption.
Corruption can come in any form, from our diet, sleep schedule, work, and relationships to how we present our skill set to the world around us and how we choose to make our talk our walk.
The Sanskrit word for the throat Chakra is “Vissudha,” which means purification. We heal our corruption triggers by cleansing anything out of integrity in our lives. Clearing the air, making amends, repairing, restoring, and then living in integrity with the vibrational nature of reality will heal our Throat Chakra triggers and open up a resonating integrity within all areas of our being.
The Throat Chakra holds our vibrational nature. Our vibrational frequency is just another way of saying where our emotional energy and physical body spend the most time. In short, the places we go back to create the mind, body, and spirit vibrational set points (that we frequently hang out in) determine our frequency.
So when we hang out in fear, shame, or depleted levels of personal integrity, often as a default frequency, we limit our ability to feel well or to honor our truth or the truth of others.
Whether it is gossip that creates a relationship with our projection of others (rather than the actual living-breathing person) or whether it is the stories we tell ourselves internally about who we are and what we are capable of, our Throat Chakra energy is always trying to bring us back into vibrational integrity.
We heal the triggers at the throat when we live more honestly and in integrity with our truth and give others the space to work out their truths in a time that works for them.
Mantra to counter our Throat Chakra corruption triggers:
I am my truth, my truth is me.
BROW CHAKRA (INDIGO)
Illusion/Delusion Triggers and Right to See
Our natural intuition gives us both vision and insight. The ability to process what we see and internalize what it means helps us develop emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical intelligence. Our intuitive intelligence is hijacked by projections that sometimes hold ideas from outside of us and often resonate with some shadow layer within. When we live in our shadow layer and try to control our triggers by avoiding them, we enter the external world of illusion and the internal world of delusion.
Illusion and delusion come when we assign emotional meaning to things, ideas, people, and events without going through the mental, physical, and spiritual integration of discerning that life experience holds so much nuance. Illusion and delusion cloud our ability to perceive who we really are (both individually and collectively). Often, the shadow illusion/delusion of the brow Chakra surfaces to help us feel a sense of control in situations we are not emotionally capable of navigating from a place of wise, intelligent discernment.
We heal our illusions and delusions by fine-tuning how we recognize information triggers like misinformation, disinformation, gossip, conspiracy mindset loops, and other mental-emotional equilibrium distortions.
We heal our Brow Chakra triggers when we bring our focus and intentionally back inward. If we are lucky, we reclaim our agency as we develop the ability to deprogram where our focus and insight have become clouded and heal our Brow Chakra default triggers.
Mantra to counter our Brow Chakra Illusion/delusion Triggers:
I give my insight time to grow beyond what I see right now.
CROWN CHAKRA (VIOLET)
Our Attachment Triggers and Right to Know
When we remain stuck in our illusions/delusions, we become attached to our own projections about what life means rather than aligning ourselves with all the potential life offers.
Here, we lack the discernment we need to realize that there is a massive difference between attachment and connection. Attachment is the counterfeit to the genuine connection and alignment that a healthy Crown Chakra offers us.
When we soften our attachments just the slightest bit, our ability to recognize how everything is always moving through layers of flow within a larger life picture increases, and our capacity for conscious connection expands.
Healing our attachment triggers reveals an interconnected web of light, resonating with everything around us. We learn to trust a larger space-time continuum than we imagined. Feeling connected to the Universal flow fills the void left by our attachments.
Our Chakras align in the flow of connection, allowing us to receive beyond expectation.
Mantra to counter our Crown Chakra attachment triggers:
I am connected to everything.