Extreme Yoga Inspiration

The first chakra is about trust and learning to trust the world when your initial reaction is fear. Feeling safe and grounded in your surroundings, community, family is key to healing yourself.

Warrior II makes you connect your two feet to the earth, providing you with stability and safety.

I am safe. I trust.

It’s too bad our problems don’t stay behind with our shoes when we step into the yoga studio. Too often, we get on the mat feeling overwhelmed with worry or stymied by a relationship conflict or in need of an energy boost. But the right class can leave us feeling clearer, lighter, and refreshed. Credit the stress-busting powers of a good workout? Sure. But the ancient yogis, and many teachers today, would also chalk this up to the unique way that yoga poses and breathwork move blocked prana (life force) through the subtle body.

According to yoga tradition, the subtle body is a part of you that you can’t see or touch—it’s where your energy flows, which is why it’s also referred to as the energy body. There are seven key points in the subtle body that are thought to be vortexes of energy, known as chakras. When energy becomes blocked in a chakra, it triggers physical, mental, or emotional imbalances that manifest in symptoms such as anxiety, lethargy, or poor digestion. A well-tuned asana practice can free up energy and stimulate an imbalanced chakra, paving the way for that wonderful internal shift for which yoga is known. With just a little bit of coaching, you can tap into the chakras as a potent way of harnessing and shifting your energy in the direction you want it to go.

Start by thinking of chakras as a blueprint for your own self-care, and your yoga practice as the architect that makes that blueprint a reality. The most direct way to use the chakras is to learn how each one is associated with an element in nature. As Alan Finger, founder of ISHTA Yoga, explains, the first five chakras are associated with the physical elements earth, water, fire, air, and ether (or space). The last two chakras are thought to connect us beyond the earthly realm, so they are associated with the elements of light and cosmic energy.

Once you learn the element that each chakra is associated with, you can start to suss out how that element feels in your body. And thinking about your body in these symbolic terms can help you access new stores of energy with the practices detailed in these pages. For example, the root chakra is associated with earth. When it’s in balance, we feel strong and grounded; when it’s out of balance, we may feel unrooted and insecure. Or take the pelvic chakra, which is associated with water. When it’s in balance, we feel fluid and like our creative juices are flowing. When it’s not, we might feel rigid, dry, or emotionally brittle, like a plant that hasn’t been watered enough.

In order to restore balance in your chakras, you must first tune in to how you’re feeling, then figure out which chakra to stimulate to counteract the imbalance. For example, if you’re feeling low in energy, you can do poses that target the navel chakra to rekindle your inner fire. If you’re feeling anxious and long to feel more grounded, choose poses for the earthy root chakra. Or if you seek more courage to speak your truth, the right poses can open and stimulate the throat chakra.

The effects of a chakra-based practice can have a tangible, empowering ripple effect on your life. Jasmine Tarkeshi, vinyasa teacher and cofounder of Laughing Lotus Yoga Center, says she’s been doing more root-chakra practices since becoming a new mom, and the effect is palpable. “If I’m feeling frenzied, I hold the poses longer to feel more grounded and present,” she says. “It informs the rest of my day to the point where maybe I’m not losing my keys so much or I’m not so busy or forgetful that I skip lunch. If I specifically use the poses medicinally rather than just haphazardly, I can really change my day.”

Lie down with your shoulders supported on a folded blanket, head on the floor. Bend your knees, rock your hips up, lift your legs overhead, and then release your toes toward the floor beyond the crown of your head. Place your hands midback, and lift one leg at a time skyward. Allow your gaze to drop toward your heart, and hear the sound of your breath. Feel free to express yourself by joining the soles of the feet, or by lowering one leg at a time toward the floor. Hold for up to 2 minutes. To release, lower both feet to the floor above your head, release your hands to the floor, and lower yourself vertebra by vertebra. Freeing the neck and spine, and then turning the senses in toward your breath, allows you to connect with your own rhythm.

See also Throat Chakra Tune-Up Practice

This chakra is associated with your intuition, or sixth sense, and governs how the rest of the chakras function. When Ajna is functioning well, you have insight, and you trust your inner wisdom to face life’s challenges and choices. When it’s blocked, you feel close-minded, too attached to logic, untrusting, and cynical. Working on the sixth chakra opens your mind to the bigger picture and different perspectives, and it helps you receive the wisdom that cannot be seen or heard by ordinary senses.

Come to a seat. Fold one heel in toward your groin, and then the other. If your knees aren’t lower than your hips, sit on a folded blanket. Cup your palms toward each other, touching opposite fingertips in Hakini Mudra. For 10 breaths, close your eyes, pose a question to yourself, and focus on the sound of your breath, placing the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth as you inhale, and relaxing it as you exhale. Release the backs of your hands to your knees, and see if you sense an answer. Stay here for up to 5 minutes. Hakini Mudra is known to increase the power of concentration, and in this pose you can easily access calm focus.

Sahasrara (Crown Chakra)

The crown chakra connects to beauty itself and the spiritual realm. It helps you to understand who you are beyond your physical self—that you are a spiritual being having a human experience. It is not located in the body but actually hovers above the crown of the head. When it’s closed, you think happiness can only come from the outside, and you suffer. Working on this chakra helps you to feel free in any situation.

Make sure you’re warm and comfortable, and lie down on your back. You can cover yourself with a blanket, cover your eyes with an eye pillow, or place a rolled-up blanket under your knees or head. Open your legs hip-width apart, and release your arms to your sides with your palms facing up. Take a deep breath and squeeze every part of your body tight, lifting your head, arms, and legs off the floor. Hold for a moment, and let everything go with a big exhale out of the mouth. Do this several times. Imagine a lotus flower at the crown of your head. With every inhale, imagine Divine light pouring in through the flower, and with every exhale, let go of anything that binds you to the past. Stay for 5–20 minutes, then slowly bring your awareness back to your breath, and move your fingers and toes to reconnect to your physical body without losing your connection to your infinite self.

From seated rock forward onto hands and knees and ease the sitbones back onto the heels into Child’s Pose. Gently release your forehead into the earth and take 5 slow breaths. Let your whole body release deeply. Notice what it feels like to be completely supported and invite this exchange of surrender and support into the rest of your practice.

Muladhara is associated with the earth element and directly linked to your ability to dig in and feel firmly rooted in your life.

Aptly, this energy center is associated with your root issues, such as your sense of security, satisfying your basic needs, familial relationships, and how at home you feel in your body and on this planet.

When out of alignment, the muladhara can be associated with weight gain (or loss), depression, anxiety, constipation, pelvic pain, and incontinence.

When the root chakra is out of alignment, you may find yourself busily bouncing from one thing to the next in a rush without appropriate attention or intention. This can lead to exhaustion, anxiety, and stress. On the flipside its imbalance can result in a feeling of lethargy, being stuck, feeling unable to take action, and manifest intention.

When the first chakra is in healthy alignment, you will be able to tap into its graceful stability to support a calm and steady energy.

Virabhadrasana II is a great way to create some heat and begin to open the hips. Stand in a wide straddle facing the long edge of your mat with feet about 4 feet apart. Turn your right leg and foot out so that they point toward the short edge of your mat. Bend your right knee to no more than 90 degrees. Extend your arms horizontally out over the legs. Lengthen the spine from tail to crown while sliding your shoulder blades down the ribs. As you stand here in the Warrior stance, soften the organ of your skin inward and let that remind you of your innate receptive self. Neither aggressive nor passive, you are a creative, strong, and beautiful being. Spend 5 breaths here and imagine those breaths as water, running rivers of light through your entire physical, emotional, and mental self.

The svadhisthana chakra is associated with water. This energy center offers direct access to flow, flexibility, and fun.

In working with this chakra, you will address your relationship with both others and yourself. Personally, you’ll discover you have unlimited creative power; you’ll learn how to cultivate a healthy relationship to pleasure; and you’ll gain insight into your default reactions and deepest emotions. With others, you’ll learn how to express yourself more skillfully and how to begin setting healthy boundaries.

When the sacral chakra is out of alignment, you may experience chronic low back pain, ovarian cysts and other reproductive issues, urinary tract infections, impotence, pain during intercourse, complications with the bladder and kidneys, and other pelvic–lower abdominal issues.

Mentally, blocked sacral energy can be associated with addiction, repressed emotions, and lack of creative energy.

When the sacral chakra is in healthy alignment, you will be able to source energy for creativity, movement, procreation, desire, pleasure, and relationships.

One of the quickest ways to get the fire burning is through Kaphalabhati. Take a comfortable seat and close your eyes. Touch the forefinger and thumb together on each hand. Inhale through your nose and quickly exhale through your nose, as you draw your belly back toward your spine. The inhale is passive and the exhale is sharp and quick. You can go fast or slow according to your comfort and do as many rounds as you like.

Set Your Manipura Intention
Now set your intention for this practice. To grease the wheels, here are some themes that relate to the third chakra: My happiness depends on no external source; I release all blame and transform that into freedom to create the life that I want; I am worthy and inherently powerful; I can contribute to the world in a meaningful way; where can I release shame, self-critical, or over controlling thoughts/actions? Feel free to use any of those or choose your own. As long as your intention feels true for you it has value.