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and healing all the time. Thus, it is essential that our seven main chakras stay open, aligned, and fluid. If there is a blockage, energy cannot flow. Another way to think about this is in terms of our personal growth and evolution. As we mature from infancy to adolescence to young adulthood, and from adulthood onward to middle age and beyond, we become wiser and priorities change. Our worldview changes, as do our needs. Growth and healing happens wherever energy flows. Energy flow requires awareness.

      Awareness neutralizes some of the rigidity of fixed ways of thinking and keeps energy flowing smoothly. It allows us to understand when to hold on to things and when to let go. It creates the ability to choose consciously rather than acting in automatic, predictable ways. Because mind, body, soul, and spirit are intimately connected, awareness of an imbalance in one area will help bring the others back into balance. This shift in our mental paradigm is what is required for us to adopt a new way of living.

      The Three Chakras of Matter

      The first three chakras, starting at the base of the spine, are chakras of matter. They are more physical in nature. These chakras can also be thought of as symbolic of our most basic needs for survival — food, water, and shelter — and body organ functions, such as the capacity to excrete waste and to reproduce. These are dominant in our infancy and childhood, as the top priority at that time is to survive.

      First chakra: The chakra of survival, stability, security, and our basic needs, the first chakra encompasses the base of the spine, the bladder, and the colon. When this chakra is open, we feel safe and fearless. It is the energy of feeling connected to the Earth in a way that is safe and nurturing. Having issues with safety and security can lead to problems with addiction to foods or money, or hoarding behavior that attempts to compensate for lack of safety and security at some prior point in life.

      Second chakra: The second chakra is our sensuality, creativity, and sexual center. It is located above the pubic bone, below the navel, and is responsible for our creative expression. Issues related to sensuality and creative expression at any stage in life can lead to imbalances in our sexuality, such as insecurities, dysfunctions, or sex addictions later in life.

      Third chakra: The third chakra is located in the area from the navel to the breast bone: the pit of the stomach. The third chakra is our source of personal power, our self-worth and determination. This is the seat of the “fire in the belly” that drives us to move forward. Imbalances at this level can lead to overidentification with the ego, manifesting as arrogance. This energy may be most powerful during our adolescent and teenage years.

      The Four Chakras of Spirit

      These chakras speak to our higher needs of truth, freedom, enlightenment, and bliss.

      Fourth chakra: Located at the heart center, at the middle of the seven chakras, the fourth chakra unites the lower chakras of matter with the upper chakras of spirit. The fourth is spiritual in nature but serves as a bridge between our body, mind, emotions, and spirit. The heart chakra is our source of love and connection. It is at the level of the heart that we can expand the body horizontally. Think of it as opening your arms to hug or hold hands with a loved one or to hold hands with the people on your sides.

      When we work through our first three physical chakras and into the fourth chakra of love and connection, we can open the spiritual chakras more completely. Our need for connection manifests itself in young adulthood as the most powerful. As we move and mature through adulthood, getting wiser, our needs change, as should our awareness.

      Fifth chakra: The fifth chakra, located in the area of the throat, is our source of communication, verbal expression, and the ability to speak our highest truth. The fifth chakra includes the neck, thyroid, and parathyroid glands, jaw, mouth, and tongue.

      Sixth chakra: The sixth chakra is located between the eyebrows. It is also referred to as the “third eye” chakra. It is our center of intuition. We all have a sense of intuition, though we may not listen to it or heed its warnings. Focusing on opening the sixth chakra will help you hone this ability, thus making choices that are in alignment with your values.

      Seventh chakra: The seventh chakra, or the “thousand-petal lotus chakra,” is located at the crown of the head. This is the chakra of enlightenment and spiritual connection to our higher selves, others, and ultimately, the universal divine.

      Figure 2.1. The seven chakras

      Awareness: A Powerful Tool for Aligning the Chakras

      Being aware when your chakras are out of balance is the key to aligning them. Our bodies are in constant flux between balance and imbalance. Unless you have an apparent problem in one area of the body, imbalances can be difficult to detect. That being said, building awareness of your body-mind connection is a good start in learning its signals and clues.³ Awareness is a way to find equanimity in the midst of the perturbations of life. By becoming aware of where we might be stuck in our thinking, by adopting a mindful attitude and a relaxed posture, we can allow energy to flow more freely. Yoga and meditation show the way to achieve this.

      Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

      When we are focused only on our physical needs, energy is unable to flow freely to help us achieve balance between physical and emotional/spiritual needs. Of course, this does not mean that physical needs are unimportant. In fact, as posited by Abraham Maslow, human beings have a hierarchy of needs composed of five levels, from basic survival needs to self-actualization:

      1. Survival: food, shelter, and clothing (base chakra)

      2. Safety: both physical and economic (base chakra)

      3. Love and belonging: friendship, intimacy (middle chakra)

      4. Esteem: confidence and achievement (higher chakra)

      5. Self-actualization: achieving one’s full purpose with creativity (highest chakra)

      Physical needs related to survival and safety need to be met first before moving up to love, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. When we feel threatened, we revert back to our survival and safety needs. When this happens, our focus is on hoarding energy to survive: Appetite is increased, especially for calorie-dense foods loaded with sugar and fat, and the body enters the mode of being thrifty so that the energy “burn rate” is slowed down. Thus, the impairment of metabolism that leads to diabesity results from the state of feeling threatened and shifting into overeating, energy hoarding, and “thrifty metabolism survival mode.”

      The ancient yoga philosophy — which first systematically documented the chakra system in 800 BCE — long ago figured out what Western philosophers found out in the early twentieth century. The chakras correlate closely with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The base chakras are concerned with survival and sexuality, which is the base of the pyramid in Maslow’s hierarchy! The love and communication chakras around the middle (heart and throat) correlate with the love, belonging, and esteem portion of Maslow’s hierarchy. The crown and brow chakras of spirituality and intuition correlate with “self-actualization,” which was described by Maslow as the highest need.

      Of course, these days, we might relate to an even deeper, more basic need than all the others: the need for Wi-Fi. I’ve modified Maslow’s pyramid accordingly!

      Figure 2.2. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

      The Triune Brain Model

      According to the triune model of the human brain, first theorized by American neuroscientist Paul MacLean in the 1960s and described in his 1990 book The Triune Brain in Evolution, we actually have not one but three brains, or at least three independently functioning parts of the brain active at all times. We need to understand and master all of

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