Balancing the Throat Chakra

Vishuddha is the Sanskrit name for the Throat Chakra. 

The throat chakra is located at the base of the neck. This vital energy center is where you fully accept and live your truth and express who you are.

In the fifth chakra, a gate is opened that allows our inner self to be expressed to the outer world.

My teacher Alan Seale explains; “In the solar plexus, you recognize what the truth is. In the heart, you integrate it into all of your being, and in the throat, you carry it out into the world. 

I call the throat chakra the adult chakra because it’s where you claim full responsibility for everything in your life and let go of seeking something or someone else to blame. You step fully into self.”

Characteristics of the throat chakra include communication, creativity, and finding one’s voice.

When you are in balance, it is easier to express yourself, be a good listener, and access your creativity.  Communication is the primary function of the fifth chakra.  When you feel free to express yourself the outer world is able to know what is inside of you.

There is a strong linkage between the second chakra and the fifth chakra.

We learned that Svadisthana, the sacral chakra, opens the gate that allows the world in through your senses.  In Vishuddha, the gate opens that allows your inner expression out into the world.  You can also think of the throat chakra as your internal gateway between body and mind.  

In the book Eastern Body, Western Mind, by Andoea Judith, she makes some remarkable points:

“The narrowest passage within the whole chakra system, the throat is literally a bottleneck for the passage of energy.”  “If the throat chakra is blocked, so is the upward movement of energy, which cannot pass into the conscious mind.”  “If instead, we live up in our head with a throat chakra block, then we cannot speak what we know.”

The throat chakra’s demons are untruth, lies, and inconsistency between feelings and expression. 

Expressing your truth is often difficult.  Societal pressures make some inclined to say what others want to hear.   As children, we may have been punished for disagreeing with parents, threatened to keep family secrets, or made to behave in a way that was inconsistent with our feelings.  We may have been teased for admitting our feelings, ignored when we wanted to speak, or ostracized if our opinions were not in sync with the mainstream.

In the throat chakra, we release the past. We fully acknowledge and assume responsibility for the events of our lives.  

Underscoring this accountability is the notion that we draw our life experiences to us so that we might learn, grow and move to the next level of understanding.

This is an enormous concept to grasp.  However, as I have learned from many wise teachers when you accept that you created or attracted your life challenges and experiences, you can then harness the power to create a different experience. 

One of my teachers says that nothing happens TO you everything happens THROUGH you.

The Throat Chakra and Creativity

When we feel free to express ourselves, this impacts our resonance and gives us the freedom to be creative and to live creatively.

When we create, we make something that has not existed before. ~Andoea Judith

We learned that the second chakra is considered the center of creativity; here creativity takes place almost unconsciously.  In the fifth chakra, creativity is conscious and determined.

Exercise for Tuning the Throat Chakra

To begin, sit in a chair with your legs uncrossed. Next, close your eyes and breathe.  Then, feel the breath fill your throat.  Breathe in the color bright blue, the color associated with the throat chakra. 

Feel this part of your body come alive. You may feel warmth or sensation or some other signal that energy is moving there. If you experience resistance, be patient and gentle with yourself and ease your way into the throat chakra with your breath.  If there is a great deal of resistance, allow yourself several sessions of relaxed, intentional breathing to make your way in. 

Repeat the following Throat Chakra affirmations. Do they ring true for you?

 I:

Hear and speak my truth

Express with clear intent

Allow creativity to flow

Use my voice and speak up

Feel free to be me

How to Balance Vishudda

The balancing techniques mentioned here are those that can be accomplished personally within your body’s own healing processes.

Besides meditating and tuning into your intuition in your daily life, you can also balance the fifth chakra using yoga, colors, gems, journaling, eating blue food, and using essential oils.

Two pranayama exercises that bring heat and stimulate the throat chakra are Ujjayi Breath and Lion’s Breath.

Yoga Asanas can balance the throat chakra.

In yoga practice, camel pose, bridge pose, shoulder stand, and plow poses all stimulate the thyroid and parathyroid glands as well as bring energy to the area of the throat.

The color corresponding to the fifth chakra is light blue, and gems to balance this chakra are sapphire, blue topaz, lapis lazuli, aquamarine, and turquoise.

Experiencing quiet is beneficial for fifth chakra balance

It is not easy to eliminate sound pollution in most environments.  If we can take time each day to experience quiet without any interruptions, this can help our inner vibrational field to come back into resonance. 

“Sound awareness is especially important, for although we can easily close our mouth and eyes to what we don’t want to take in, we can’t really close our ears.   Nature did not give us ear-lids.  Our ears remain open and working even when we sleep. “ ~ Steven Halpern

Chanting or toning sounds can also help bring Vishudda back to balance. 

Sounds create vibrations in the body, and these vibrations help the cells work together in synchronistic harmony. 

Chanting, singing, humming, and reading aloud are wonderful ways to open the fifth chakra. 

The mantra sound that corresponds to the heart chakra is the sound Ham (hum).  You can practice this in the linked video.

Eating foods, such as blackberries, plums, aubergine, purple grapes, purple broccoli, purple carrots, and goji berries is helpful for balancing the throat chakra.  Wearing blue colors also helps balance Vishudda.

Another tool for throat chakra health is sniffing essential oils such as Frankincense, Lavender, Peppermint, Geranium, and Myrtle.

Journaling, letter-writing, creativity, and affirmations are other healing practices for the throat chakra.

Thank you for reading this post. Feel free to share it.  Special thanks to Kathy Kellum for the throat chakra art image.

If you would like to learn more about the chakras, join us in the Soul Artist Experience.

Find out more about my journey through my book on Amazon: Vision Quest: A Journey to Happiness by Jane Ramsey.

Watch my YouTube video about freeing your inner artist.

Watch my YouTube video explaining the courses I teach.

To learn more about Chakras, read the Blog below:

Understanding Chakras

Practice gentle chakra tuning

Interested in the Universal Laws?  The Blogs for each of the 12 Laws are found below:

1. Divine Oneness

2. Vibration

3. Correspondence

4. Attraction

5. Inspired Action

6. Perpetual Transmutation of Energy

7. Cause and Effect

8. Compensation

9. Relativity

10. Polarity

11. Rhythm

12. Gender

Find out more about Jane Ramsey