http://www.colourtherapyhealing.com/col ... chakra.php
Read that link first. With an imbalance in the chakra, there could be physical side effects, so if you start to notice any of these issues:
•Diabetes.
•Pancreatitis.
•Liver disease.
•Peptic ulcer.
•Coeliac's disease.
•Gall stones.
See a doctor. Immediately. Keep working on the chakra, but see a doctor.
That having been said, here are the exercises.
Grounding and Centering (Basics)
Even though it's alwasy referred to as Grounding and Centering, actually the best way to do this is always to center first. Grounding and Centering should be a daily practice for anyone who does any energy work at all... and meditation is energy work. Grounding and Centering should also be done EVERY TIME YOU DO SOME KIND OF ENERGY WORK. Before AND after. ALWAYS. I can't stress that enough.
Now I see by your color that you've been a member here for more than six months, but just in case you're still not sure what these terms are, or how to practice them, I'm gong to give you the barebones basics anyway... you're probably not the only one who's going to read this thread, and repeating the basics over and over is never a bad thing. A review even when you've been doing something for 20 years is always helpful, and new perspectives on an old practice can be useful and enriching.
Centering is, at its base, becoming aware of yourself. In most spiritual practices this involves connecting to the solar plexus, and the center channel running through all of the 12 major chakras, minus the hands. However, if you try to force yourself into your center, you're going to slide off or around. Centering is more about relaxing, diffusing, and sinking in than about force. Your chakras will respond with equal force to what you are applying, so the more you try to shove your way into your navel, the more you will spin, and dislocate. So... go back to breathing and relaxation. When you're relaxed enough, sink into your center. Become connected to YOU. Even if you don't really know who you are anymore because life has changed so much lately, at the core of yourself, you are still YOU. Sink into that. There is, in all of us, a timeline... and when we look at the timeline, we can see how our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, actions and statements change over the years... but we can also see how our core selves stay the same. There are some things about us that never change. No matter the external pressures put on us, we are still ourselves.
THAT is what you connect to when you center.
Problems:
If, when you try to center, everything starts spinning around you, or YOU start spinning... it's ok. You cannot stop the tide from flowing. But you can make it pause long enough for you to align yourself with it, become one with it, and join the flow. Don't try to put up a wall and stop one spot. Stop the whole thing at once. You'll "hear" a POP, almost like the sound a dislocated limb might make when it pops back into place... and then you'll suddenly be centered.
If you find yourself slightly above or below your body, floating, and unable to sink into your solar plexus or central channel, I find that visualizing an old-style set of scales between where I am and where my center channel is, and KNOWING that those scales are representative of the balance of energy between myself and my center, is very helpful. I can shift the energy from one side to the other, until the scales come into balance, and again, POP, I'm in my center.
Grounding is acknowledging your connection to the world around you. Your body, whether you are an evolutionist or a creationist, is made up of earth. When it stops, it will go back to being earth. Whether you believe that the big bang happened or not, all things were created out of energy first, and became matter. All things come from the light that came after the darkness. If you're of a scientific bent, then at the beginning, after the big bang happened, everything was so close together that light couldn't shine... it was only after it cooled down a little and spread out that light flamed into being. When light flamed into being, slowly matter left over from the big bang coalesced into clouds, and then into stars, and then with the deaths of those stars, the byproducts created more dust, which coalesced into more stars, and eventually planets, and those planets eventually gave rise to us. We are connected, by this, to both the earth, the stars, and the moment the universe began. Without any of those things, we would not exist.
If you're a creationist... well, Divinity created light, and then earth, and then man out of earth... And with the breath of the divine within man, man came alive. Therefore, as an artist cannot create that which it is not, you are light, and earth, and the spark of God. With grounding, we connect to those elements. We connect to, by either belief, the earth and the creative moment where we began.
Grounding is always done both ways... think of it like poles... you have a crown that's connected to the divine, the center of the universe, the creative spark, the eternal wisdom, or however you want to look at it... and you have a root that is connected to the earth. I have to connect UP first, and THEN down, or I get a headache. Most people connect to Earth first, and then the heavens. Do it the way that is most effective for you.
Grounding begins with expansion. You are centered. You know that chakras, with the exception of the Ajna chakra between your physical eyes, all take in energy from the back, and express it out the front. The Ajna chakra, being the root of the subconscious, actually goes backwards and draws in from the front and expresses out the back... but we won't be working with that chakra so don't worry about it. To expand, you need to, while centered, draw in energy. Use your breath, and visualization, to open all your chakras, one at a time, and encourage them to draw in energy from the back, but the one you're really going to focus on drawing energy into, from your crown down and your root up, is the solar plexus. All that energy, from your back, from your breath, from your crown down and your root up, needs to pool into your solar plexus, where you reside. This will result in a steady GENTLE expansion of that chakra. When the chakra has filled your whole body with yellow light, so that it is dripping off your fingers and toes, pouring from your hair, and your aura has become golden, then it is time to ground.
Send that energy up and down. You may do this one at a time, or both at once. The idea is to connect to the core of the earth, and the core of the universe, using YOU energy. Once that connection is made, you then draw universal and earth energies, back into your solar plexus and center again.
To do the earth grounding, visualize yourself sinking into the very core of the earth, where the molten iron boils. Find a place to stand in all this firey earth, and dig your feet in. You can picture roots if you like, but the idea is to become one with the earth. Your feet merge with that spot, so that you cannot tell where one ends, and the other begins. There is a balancing of energy - yours to the earth's, and the earth's to yours. When the energy balances and stabalizes, you'll feel clean and refreshed, and ready for the next step, which will be UP. Come back up to your solar plexus, through your root, but STAY CONNECTED TO THE EARTH.
Now, look to the center of the universe, the heart of God, the source emanation, the big bang, or however you want to define it. Look for a core of light. The light is so bright, you can barely look at it. Enter the light, and repeat the same process, this time with your crown, that you did with your feet in the earth. Come back, maintaining your connection to the Universe, and center again.
This is the process of grounding and centering.
Grounding and centering should be a daily practice, even for a master-level practitioner. It should be done before and after any energetic work. Meditation, healing, spells, conjuring, and even has practical uses outside of the energetic world. Ground and center before a job interview, and afterwards. Ground and center before and after a party where you'll be meeting new people, or being around people you don't feel comfortable with. Ground and center if you've had a sudden fright. Ground and center when you have to have a heavy discussion with your spouse, or after a fight with your child. Any place where you are going to express emotional, mental, or spiritual energy, ground and center before and after. Going to run a race? Ground and center first. It'll give you more oomph to hit the track and GO! And then ground and center afterwards, to help flush yourself out and calm down your body. Grounding and centering has multiple uses outside the magickal community, so don't be shy about practicing it anytime you feel you need a little moment to collect yourself.
Problems: Most people don't go deep enough. They connect only on the surface. As long as your visualization is clear and you're intent is to connect to the cores you're working with, this shouldn't be a problem... but always aim for deeper and deeper. You will, with practice, grow out of shallow grounding.
Cleansing and Clearing (Moderate)
Now that you are correctly grounded and centered... it's time to clear out the blockages. The first way is a general cleansing... It cleanse all your chakras, your aura, and all your bodies at once.
Picture two balls of white light... one arising from the earth, one from the core of the universe. They are as wide as your aura.
If you don't know how large your aura is, stick your arms out to your sides like you're about to do jumping jacks, but turn your palms towards each other. SLOWWWWWLY bring them together in front of you, paying very close attention to the moment your hands begin to feel sensation. It could be vibration, tingles, warmth, coldness, thickness, but you will feel SOMETHING. If you don't... keep trying. The moment you feel your aura, you'll know the size of your aura. Keep in mind that with meditation, grounding and centering, and doing other forms of energy work, including this cleansing exercise, your aura will grow. Check periodically to see if you need to make larger balls.
You can do this next step one of two ways. You can run the balls through one at a time, or you can do them both at the same time... the second way is more difficult to visualize, but much more effective. So... you have your two balls of white light, one from the earth, one from the universe/god/whathaveyou. Draw the balls into your body. As you do this, visualize all of your chakras spinning open. The earth ball starts 12 inches below your feet (remember you're cleansing your aura and all three bodies with this) and the sky ball starts 12 inches above the gold chakra that's six inches above your head.
Visualize your other two bodies aligned with your physical body for this. Don't worry about seeing their chakras yet... that comes with practice. Just try to see the three bodies and how they intersect.
Now, pull the two balls of white light through your system. The head one goes down and out your feet, and into the earth. The foot one goes up and out your head, and into the universe. Do you remember the laundromat, with the washing machines with their glass doors? How you could see the clothes, the water, the soap, all being tumbled and tumbled as the washer cleansed the clothes? These balls are washing balls. They roll and tumble on the inside, and as they roll and tumble, filling your system with clean white light, they soak up all the ick, and keep it separated, so that when they finally go into the earth or into the sky, you're clean, and the ick is gone. As you release the balls back into the earth and sky, say "I release this energy back into the universe, to be cleansed and repurposed, for the highest good of all, with unconditional love." You don't have to say it out loud, but the intent has to be there.
Next, remember I explained before about energy (except for the Ajna) being recieved from your back, and being radiated out your front? Well, when you cleanse a really bad blockage from a chakra, it helps to take a ball of white light, and run it through that particular chakra, in that direction... again, start beyond your aura, and move through the chakra, feeling for the clog. Let the ball of white light gather up the clog, cleanse, clear, and re-energise the chakra, and be radiated out the front. Say: "I release this blockage back into the universe, to be cleansed and repurposed, for the highest good of all, with unconditional love."
Once you're done cleansing and clearing... two things need to happen. First, let your chakras gently close up again. Second... I would recommend that you put up a shield of some kind to protect yourself from getting personal power blockages again. You can either collar the chakra, or ward your whole aura. Your choice. And then you have to start making choices to stand up for yourself. Be clear. Be respectful. But stop letting him push you around. Stand your ground. Don't pick fights, but draw your boundaries clearly, and STICK TO THEM. Take back your power, and don't give it away anymore. Read anything you can about personal responsibility and how choices and perspectives are entirely self-created, from decision to result. Then start making better choices, and changing your perspectives. Your world does not have to have you as the powerless victim. You are much greater, much stronger, much brighter than that. You are divine. You are stardust. You were there when the big bang happened. You were with the word when it created light. You are of the earth, and the earth is you. You, my dear, are power incarnate. Whether you accept that and begin to use it is up to you.
Balancing the Chakra (Advanced)
Finally, because you have already mentioned that you have this blockage, and that's usually a sign of imbalance, both in your mental self and your energetic self, and since you're already working on resolving the situational/psychological issues that created the blockage, when you are ready, you might try this.
Sink into the chakra. Consider it, from back to front. Is there an imbalance in how much energy it is drawing in from the back, versus how much energy it is producing out the front, that might cause it, beyond your real-life issues, to become blocked? Use the scales imagery I suggested earlier. If there is an imbalance, correct it... GENTLY. Be VERY delicate. This is, as I said, an advanced technique. Use as LITTLE power as you possibly can. Think laser surgery, not civil-war surgery.
Now... what about left and right? Aside from the main channel that connects your solar plexus to your sacral and heart chakras, and runs through the rest of your center following your spine, there are two smaller channels that spiral around the center channel, cris-crossing in a DNA pattern, from one chakra to the next. Is the flow of energy from your solar plexus chakra flowing equally towards both these channels?
Is your solar plexus balanced well between your heart and your sacral plexus?
If you can see minor chakras, like the shoulder chakras, the hip chakras, and the like, how well is the solar plexus balance with those? If you can't see them, that's ok. Work on the balances you CAN see. Think of this like a tune up. When your chakras are correctly balanced, with themselves and each other, it balances everything else.
Of course, you need to keep in mind that just as your energetic system can affect your mental state and your physical body, your physical body and mental state can have an effect on your chakra system. Always, when working with your chakras, check to see the true source of the problem. Even if you need to do some kind of cleansing or tuneup work, clearing up the TRUE source of the problem will go a long way towards clearing up the issue... and leaving the real problem unresolved will mean you keep having to go back to the drawing board over and over again. Don't just make the bed look pretty... change the sheets once in a while. lol
Finally, as a recommendation, you need to know more about chakras.
The Chakra Bible by Patricia Mercier
Working with Your Chakras by Ruth White
Kundalini and the Chakras by Genevieve Lewis Paulson
The Healer's Manual by Ted Andrews
Those books should give you a well-rounded foundation on the chakra system and self-healing techniques. Even if you never lay hands on another person, it's an excellent idea that everyone know a little about their own energetic anatomy and how to keep it tidy.
I know this is a lot of information, and I hope I haven't completely overwhelmed you. I wish you good luck in clearing this up, and many bright blessings...
Le me know if you have any issues with any of this, or if any other problems crop up.
Bright blessings...
Selqet