Purple kale or pork fry? Chickpea stew or cheeseburger? Water or wine? What does YOUR body want?
What we eat and how we eat it makes a difference to the seven main energy centers in our body, known as chakras. The upper most chakras, including chakras 6 and 7, are more ethereal in nature. When balancing these chakras through the foods you eat, it’s more about how you approach food and eating and less about a list of foods to ingest.
In this blog we’ll talk about ways to nourish the 6th and 7th chakras through food. (For prior blogs about foods that help nourish the 1st chakra, the 2nd and 3rd chakras, and the 4th and 5th chakras follow these links.)
SIXTH CHAKRA
The 6th chakra is about intuition and imagination. It’s located between the eyebrows and is at times referred to as the third eye or brow chakra. It’s associated with the color indigo and element of light. Even numbered chakras are seen as female in nature; they’re about receptivity, openness and turning inward. In the physical body this chakra relates to the eyes, face, parts of the brain, lymphatic system and endocrine system.
Some clues pointing to your sixth chakra needing some attention include:
- Eye issues (e.g., sty, cataracts, glaucoma, poor vision)
- Frequent bouts of dizziness
- Extreme nervousness and anxiety
- Being overly analytical
- Feeling cut off from your life purpose
- Having difficulty falling or staying asleep
- Needing external stimulants, like caffeine, to keep you going
Foods to help balance the sixth chakra include:
- Spices such as cardamom, ginger, mint, nutmeg, sage, and turmeric
- Healthy purple-red foods (e.g., eggplant, purple kale, purple potatoes, blueberries, plums, purple grapes, figs)
The body is the foundation for connecting with intuitive wisdom and for experiencing deep transformation and healing. Tapping into the foods that resonate most for your particular body is a wonderful way to connect with yourself on a deeper level. As you focus on the foods you plan to eat, ask your body what it wants. One way to do this is to close your eyes, take a few deep cleansing breaths, breathing in and breathing out, and then ask your body what it would like to eat. Spinach or French fries? A bar of chocolate or a green salad with beets? Root beer or kombucha?
Some characteristics of a person with a healthy and aligned sixth chakra include trusting in your abilities, following your dreams, being in touch with your intuition, and having the ability to be decisive.
SEVENTH CHAKRA
The 7th chakra, also called the crown chakra, is the seed of spiritual connection. It’s about knowledge, understanding, consciousness, wisdom, knowingness and spiritual identity. It’s associated with the color white, which is a combination of all colors, and is connected with the element of thought. It’s located at the crown of head just behind the top of the skull and synthesizes all the other chakras. In the physical body this chakra relates to parts of the brain, nervous system and muscular system.
Some clues pointing to a seventh chakra that could use some attention include:
- Migraines and other headaches
- Depression
- Having steadfast religious or spiritual views
- Often forgetting to eat
- Learning disorders or difficulties
- Loss of meaning or purpose
Foods that are nurturing to the seventh chakra include:
- Pure foods (i.e., non-GMO, organic, free range)
A healthy and balanced seventh chakra leads to the ability to trust in your higher self and something bigger than you.
Sometimes people have a negative experience with religious institutions, or experienced trauma in their life, and this hampers their connection with the spiritual realm. It’s helpful to remove other people’s ideas of spirituality from the forefront of your mind (parents, religious institutions, etcetera) and to see what connecting with the realm of spirit means to you. It can be liberating to make peace with your own idea of spirituality.
As you progress upward with the chakras, it’s more about how you approach food and eating and less about the foods that are related to balancing. How do you plan to use this information? Leave a comment below and let me know. Happy eating!
