A chakra is simply a center of energy in the body. The word comes from the Hindu system of beliefs and is interpreted in different ways depending on what source you read or consult. If you don’t “go along” with the idea of chakras, you can read the following as if it were a “philosophy of voice”. If you want more info on chakras, it’s easy to find on the web.
Communication, commune, communion. To reach out into the world to touch others. Creativity. To spontaneously create so that what is created is available as a creation. Individuality, to be uniquely yourself. And, indirectly, sexuality, to sound like who you are. It is also associated with all addictions that pass through the mouth (or nose): food/eating, drinking, smoking, sniffing drugs, and with things like chronic lying. All of these things are part of the qualities of, or associations with, the throat chakra.
Traditionally, the throat chakras is about what you say, the words you speak, the meaning of those words and their impact in the world and in your own life. It is about the sound itself — the character of your voice — and the way it is part or not part of your own daily experience in terms of your own awareness. You can think of “throat chakra energy” as being restated as “What did you come here to say? What message do you want to share with the world?”
The extension of throat chakra awareness is communication. Singers are communicators. So are teachers. How you say what you have to communicate is very important. If you don’t know what you want to say or how you want to say it, you won’t have much impact when it finally gets out. And, if you consider that most people “talk” to themselves in their minds constantly all day long, you need to realize that what and how you think really matters. What you notice, what you dwell upon in your thinking, in your words, and in what you perceive about what others say, is directly reflected in your attitudes, your behavior, your choices and your reactions to life. If you tell yourself something mentally, it is true while you say it, as there is no one there to tell you otherwise. Extended fully, what you say is “law” in your universe, and until and unless you wake up to your own mental programming you can’t do anything about that.
Pretty powerful stuff, this.
Given that most thought and therefore most speech is spontaneous, (we don’t memorize ahead of time what we are going to say), we are all also creating all day long. It isn’t possible for anyone to be really “uncreative” because every small choice you make moment-to-moment creates your daily experience. In order to not create, you have to pass from this world. If you wish to create in a more conscious manner, you must notice what you say to yourself and to others, and you must take (at least some) control over both.
Any deliberate work on these ideas “opens” or strengthens the throat chakra and the energy it vitalizes in your life. If you study singing or speech, or act or sing, or if you work with writing or any other artistic endeavor that requires you be deliberately communicative through it, you are strengthening the throat chakra and all of the areas in your life will reflect that. If you are struggling to “find your voice” or if you are (or were in the past) being silenced or choose not to speak for some reason that is unpleasant, your throat chakra will become clouded and you may end up with “problems” of various kinds, emotional, mental or physical. [Remember, you don’t have to believe this, it’s just for you to contemplate.] What you hear is included in this, too, as the ears, through the eustachian tubes connect into the back of the throat. If you block out what others say to you, you are also effecting your throat chakra energy. If you feel like people do not hear you, if you think what you have to say is not heard or heard clearly, if you think “no one listens to me”, or if you simply do not listen to others and will not hear what they say as being valid or valuable, you will also effect your throat. All of theses things can produce “throat chakra issues” and/or vocal problems.
Since I do not believe that we are a body separate from a mind, because the two are different aspects of one experience, and since I believe that a very conscious, alive person is one who connects through all the chakras (aligned along the spinal column), I also believe that what happens inside (us) reflects outside into the world, and vice versa. And, since energy cannot be created or destroyed (Einsteinian physics), and since emotions and thoughts have energy that can be measured through things like EEG and polygraphs, if you have a strong thought or powerful emotion and you “stuff” it for any reason, especially long term, sooner or later that energy will try to find a way out. “E-mote” means just that –to move out — and that’s what emotions do if you let them. Just look at any two-year-old. He might be screaming his head off but if you distract him with a funny toy, he will just stop. That’s what happens if the a kid is normal and not yet “socialized” to be “polite.” Unexpressed energy can back up into the body and cause an illness. Western thinking would tell you that’s ridiculous, but the Chinese and Japanese know better (acupuncture and shiatsu) both work with physical, emotional and mental issues as if there were all connected.
If you sing, the goal is to connect your singing to your heart and your mind (chakras number four and six, throat being five) and to stay in conscious touch with your body. In order to use your voice well, you need chakra three (located near the diaphragm and the abs and ribs) and chakra two (core muscles) to help you. In order to keep yourself grounded and balanced, you need chakra one (base of the spine) so you can feel your feet. If you get chakra five (throat) to work properly, it will generate “overtones” or “harmonics” of a certain kind (singers call it “resonance”) which (at least in some instances) stimulates the bones in the head through sympathetic vibration , and that “wakes up” the third eye chakra (number six). If all these chakras are working in sync (and they can) you will get a feeling that is difficult to put into words, but that allows you to feel like “all is right with the world” (at least as you sing or speak) and that opens the crown chakra (top of the head) which is number seven. Singing with all the chakras opened and energized is a very, very special transformational experience.
Really free, really open singing, coupled with clear communication and a desire to live “in the music” is very powerful to hear as well . If you do not understand this, and many people do not, you are missing a very vital experience. The angels can be your partner if you sing this way, even if you don’t believe in angels.
I have written in this blog about this topic many times, always cloaked in other language to make it more palatable to a general audience. Today, I decided to speak using different terminology. If you like this topic, dealt with this way, please let me know and I will write more along these lines. I have decades of training and experience in this (metaphysical) work. ) If this isn’t for you, and it may not be, just skip the blogs on these topics. : )