Fibromyalgia is a disorder that impacts pain, energy levels, and cognitive functioning. While the specific cause is still under investigation, evidence suggests that changes in neural pathways affect sensitivity to pain, fatigue, insomnia, and various other symptoms. Triggers in the environment, which are highly individualized, overstimulate the system. So, what does that have to do with chakras?
First, let’s define a chakra.
Chakras are a concept of Ayurvedic medicine but have also been explained in other ancient cultures like Egypt, Judaism, Buddhism, North American tribes, and the Mayans. A Sanskrit term, chakra, means wheel of energy and refers to specific locations along the spine where the mind, body, soul, and spirit converge.
Now you may be thinking, this sounds crazy. At first, I'll admit, I did too. Western medicine was all I had ever known. I thought of the body as a mechanical object where things break need assessments and treatments.
But western medicine considers only one dimension of health.
We do not operate purely as machines. We have thoughts, feelings, and energy. Energy is generated from within AND absorbed from our environment.
Enter the field of psychoneuroimmunology, the study of the mind-body connection, which explores the relationship between how thoughts and emotions impact our energy, thus our nervous systems state of activation (stress) or relaxation. Which-impact our physical health. But how?!?
I’m going to get scientific for a minute and give a little background on the nervous system, which might help you western medicine people understand this eastern medicine concept. Bear with me. 😉
Our peripheral nervous system is the nerves that branch out from the brain and spinal cord and help the brain, or the central nervous system, communicate with the body. Through the sensory nerves, information flows to and from the brain. Unlike the central nervous system protected by the skull and spinal vertebrae, the peripheral nervous system is exposed and easily impacted by trauma. It is broken down into two units: the autonomic nervous system and the somatic nervous system.
The somatic nervous system controls voluntary actions like walking, chewing, and facial expressions.
The autonomic nervous system is responsible for involuntary bodily functioning such as heart rate, breathing, digestion, sexual arousal, and blood pressure.
Finally, we arrive at our stress/rest divide. The ANS has two contrasting activation states. The parasympathetic, or relaxed state, and a sympathetic component that stimulates the flight/fight/ freeze response.
A healthy system moves seamlessly back and forth through the states. When we get stuck in too little or too much and cannot regulate our system, our body starts to respond. The nervous system interacts with both our endocrine or hormonal system and our immune system, and what impacts one system cascades into another. Therefore it can be tricky to fix a symptom by only treating one organ. Moreover, nutrition plays a vital role in the triad connection and strengthening healthy neural connections. In essence, your body does not operate independently.
The chakra system considers all of this and can help identify the root source of our illness in way that modern medicine cannot, through tuning in to our subtle body. Medicine can treat the body, but it is impossible to heal without genuinely figuring out why the physical broke down. Chakras can help reveal areas for exploration and are a powerful tool for self-exploration and personal growth.
Chakras, massive energy centers, are found along your energy highway known as Sushumna, which runs along the spine. Energy or life force, also known as Prana (yogi) or Chi (Chinese medicine), stored in these areas, comes from thoughts, feelings, memories, experiences, and actions that influence our present and future states. Imagine that Prana is a river, and each chakra is a damn along the way. At each damn, the water can either flow freely, or it can become obstructed by debris that builds up over time, or someone can quickly drop the gate, cutting the supply off suddenly. When we take time to notice the damns and do the work to ensure they are flowing at the right speed, we can influence our susceptibility to illness.
Learning how to interpret our physical symptoms as signs from our emotional and subtle energy states can also quicken healing. Each primary chakra corresponds to specific organs, glands, and a nerve plexus, a branching network of nerves composed of afferent and efferent fibers that control motor functions in specific areas of the body.
Some believe there are up to 114 different chakras, but we will focus on the major seven for this article. If you want more information, check out the section below. The seven chakras can be broken into 3 sections, the lower, middle, and upper chakras. The lower chakras are our earthly matters like survival, sex, and power. The middle chakra acts as a bridge between our earthly self and our connection with higher consciousness utilizing compassion, love, and empathy. Our upper chakras connect us with that which is greater than ourselves, enlightenment.
Using yoga and meditation practice, we connect with our energy and work within ourselves to resolve and clear out stuck baggage that weighs us down. We can shift our energy and unblock our chakras to create better balance and homeostasis.
When practicing yoga and meditation, we connect with our subtle energy system. Learning to tune in to our subtle body helps restoration.
The chakras correspond to a hierarchy of needs by famous psychologist Abraham Maslow. We can begin influencing our own experience and growing as an overall person in awareness by working from the lower chakras on up.
The chakra system is highly sensitive, so we also need to pay attention to daily fluctuations. Chakras can be impacted by stressful events, environmental toxins, diets, inner issues, electromagnetic disturbances, and even the chakras of those close to you. If you’ve ever felt someone’s energy, you know what I'm referring to. Many of us with fibromyalgia are also very empathetic or even codependent, so we easily pick up and even take on the emotional states of others.
As if clamped, poor functioning is caused by emotional, mental, energetic, or spiritual factors. Suppose you can imagine a clogged drain, the more debris, the lower the flow, the less energy generated to send out to the organs around the area. As a result, you may experience physical symptoms like trouble breathing from the heart chakra or trembling from a weakened root chakra.
Clearing blockages at the current developmental level so that energy flows calmly. In the beginning, we experience this temporarily during meditation and flow and work up over time to strengthen resiliency to external stress for a more permanent balance. But, again, the chakras are very sensitive, so it takes practice to be less volatile.
Bringing resolution to deep emotional energies that have been stored within the chakra. Yogis know these emotional energies as Samskaras or subtle impressions of our past actions that impact our thinking process. The greater the attention and mindfulness of the action, the stronger the impression. Repeating the action also increases the impression. As these become habits, less attention is paid, impacting our behaviors and actions. Eventually, these habits may alter our body chemistry and become an addiction. Once these are entirely ingrained, we forget where these samskaras originated. They collectively become our personality and impact our impression of ourselves and those around us. To not become victims of our past and to grow and mature, we must unpackage these samskaras and explore the source. Some may be positive, and we chose to keep them. Others may no longer be serving us, and by identifying them, we can choose to change the way we feel, think, and act.
Increasing the qualities and refining the capabilities of a chakra. Chakra work is all about self-awareness and becoming enlightened in our connection with that which is outside ourselves. While chakras impact us physically, it’s the mental opening we focus on; the unconscious impact being brought into conscious contemplation.
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References:
1. Fibromyalgia. https://www.niams.nih.gov/health-topics/fibromyalgia
2. Healing Fibromyalgia the Esoteric Healing Way. https://www.wakeupnaturally.com/2021/06/30/361393/healing-fibromyalgia-the-esoteric-healing-way
3. The Scientific Basis of Integrative Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142191/
4. Peripheral Nervous System.
5. Nerve Plexus
6. What are Samskaras and How do They Affect Us?
