Most articles on chakras give you the standard list.
The root chakra for grounding and stability.
The sacral chakra for feeling, creativity, pleasure, and connection.
The solar plexus chakra for will, drive, and direction.
The heart chakra for love, compassion, and emotional maturity.
The throat chakra for truth and expression.
The third eye chakra for insight, intuition, and inner vision.
The crown chakra for Spirit, meaning, and transcendence.
All good.
But to get more value from the chakras, we need to dig deeper. We need to unearth new reference frames that turn chakra knowledge into something practical, not just familiar.
To that end, I want to investigate how we can view the chakras in terms of personal growth and seven-year cycles.
Naturally, these cycles aren’t set in stone, because you can wrestle with different chakra themes at almost any time of your life.
But framing our relationship to our chakras in this light does make a surprising degree of sense when you reflect on how humans grow, struggle, bond, separate, speak, awaken, and evolve.
What’s more, it helps us understand the importance of connecting to the energy of certain chakras more than others at certain periods of our life, because depending on what we are doing and what challenges we are facing, we will need more of some chakra energies than others.
In this way, a skilful meditator and energy worker will learn to use chakra energies like levers they can pull when the need for specific types of energy arises.
The root chakra is where life asks a child one very primal question.
Are you safe enough to feel settled and secure?
Not just physically safe.
Safe in the deeper sense of: Is the world stable enough to trust?
In some ways, it’s all about rhythm.
About predictability and familiarity.
Young children want consistency.
Patterns they know and trust.
They want to know the world isn’t about to fall apart.
And that’s why they love repetition.
Same bedtime rituals.
Same stories.
Same comfort objects.
Same songs.
For teens and adults, constant repetition is tedious.
But for young children, it’s a joy.
It feels safe.
It feels friendly.
It feels like home.
That’s why kids’ TV shows like Blue’s Clues actually became more successful when they started repeating episodes.
Because small children love knowing what is coming next.
It makes them feel secure.
In general, small children experience root chakra challenges in two main ways:
First, a lack of consistency, where their life lacks predictable rhythms or a sense of steadiness.
Second, anxiety, where their system stays on alert because it never feels safe enough to settle.
As adults, root chakra issues tend to show up in the moments when life becomes uncertain: money stress, health stress, relationship upheaval, big changes, and big decisions.
At such times, people typically start chasing safety through external means.
They want something solid to hold onto.
They want a life raft.
But ultimately, real security and stability come from within.
For anything external can always be lost or taken away.
Anything external is impermanent.
That is why meditating on, healing, or strengthening the root chakra will give you a deeper sense of inner stability.
It will help you to feel grounded and secure, and you’ll feel this because you have an inner ‘anchor’, an inner ‘centre of gravity’.
Root Chakra Lever
When you feel anxious, when you feel insecure, when you feel physically frail and vulnerable, do extra work on your base chakra. You’ll be amazed how much better you feel, even without the external world changing.
When people think about the 2nd chakra, they typically think about creativity.
And it’s true: this chakra is vital for all things creative.
But another critical point is that the sacral chakra governs our relationship with feeling.
With pleasure, desire, and emotional flow.
With the way we bond with other humans through shared experience.
Once you see that, creativity makes perfect sense here.
Because creativity is often just emotion trying to move.
It’s what happens when feeling turns into expression.
Into art, play, movement, music, style…
Of course, very young children are creative too. But ages 7–14 is when that creativity often becomes more specific and identity-linked.
Here, kids aren’t just playing; they are developing interests and tastes.
Here, it’s not just imagination, but self-expression.
What’s more, at this stage, the emotional world becomes far more layered.
A toddler’s feelings are usually immediate and physical.
They are tired. They are hungry. They are frustrated.
But ages 7–14 is when emotions become social.
Embarrassment. Comparisons. Inclusion and exclusion. Loyalty. Betrayal. Status anxiety.
Emotions are now more complex.
And all that even before we start talking about the first real waves of attraction and heartbreak: of crushes, jealousy, longing, and rejection.
A key shift also happens at this point in friendships.
Friendships often move from playmate to confidant.
Now there is more self-disclosure.
More secrets.
More emotional loyalty.
More of that feeling of: ‘You get me’.
At this stage, a lot of kids discover that both sharing joy and upset can create closer emotional ties.
And of the two, it is often through shared upset or drama that kids bond the most.
They rehash the same problem again and again, not because they’re trying to solve it, but because it creates emotional intimacy.
Researchers call this ‘co-rumination’, and it is a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, repeatedly rehashing problems with friends can increase closeness, but on the other, it can also increase emotional looping and anxiety.
Many adults never fully outgrow this pattern, and many also suffer from other 2nd chakra-related issues in relationships.
They chase intensity.
They confuse chemistry with compatibility.
They grow addicted to the spark, the reassurance, the emotional heat, because that’s what feels like connection.
This can show up as jealousy, clinging, fear of abandonment, or a sense that love only feels real when it’s dramatic.
Beyond relationships, creativity might also dry up and get stuck, not because you suddenly became a boring person, but because self-expression gets tangled with judgment, shame, or a sense that you’re not allowed to enjoy things.
Meditating on, healing, or strengthening the sacral chakra tends to restore positive movement.
It helps emotions move through you instead of getting stuck.
It helps you process feelings instead of bottling them or spiralling.
It helps you enjoy pleasure without needing to justify it.
And it helps you experience closeness without clinging.
Sacral Chakra Lever
Emphasise the sacral chakra when you need to process feelings instead of bottling them, reclaim your creativity, enjoy pleasure without guilt, and feel close to others without clinging.
The solar plexus chakra relates to will, direction, drive, and self-definition.
It’s the part of you that turns desire into a goal, and a goal into action.
It asks: What matters to me?
What do I stand for?
What am I building?
Where is my life going?
This is why teenagers can seem intense.
They’re constructing identity.
They’re trying to find agency.
They’re testing where their power begins and ends.
This often shows up as a longing for independence, boundary-testing, striving to prove themselves, competitiveness, and a strong sensitivity to success and failure.
Because when the self is still forming, everything feels personal.
The common challenges here are often tied to image, shame, and performance.
Fear of humiliation.
Fear of judgment.
Fear of getting it wrong in public.
Some teens cope by overcompensating – putting on a tough or cocky front to hide insecurity.
Others cope by collapsing inward – going quiet, avoiding challenges, and holding back because failure feels too risky.
Psychologists have described this adolescent experience as the ‘imaginary audience’, where teens often feel watched and judged as though the spotlight is always on them.
Later on, in adult life, solar plexus chakra issues can show up in many ways.
People-pleasing.
Weak boundaries.
Procrastination.
Burnout from proving yourself rather than living in alignment with your real purpose.
Difficulty taking the lead, putting yourself out there, naming your price without guilt, or – for many reading this article – owning your authority as a healer or teacher.
Meditating on, healing, or strengthening the solar plexus chakra tends to give you a cleaner drive.
A clearer direction.
Better follow-through.
More calm confidence.
And stronger boundaries.
Solar Plexus Chakra Lever
Emphasise the solar plexus chakra when you need direction, decisive action, and backbone.
The heart chakra is where love evolves from ‘intensity’ into depth.
It’s where love stops being mainly about chemistry and starts being about staying open, staying honest, staying kind and loving when things get difficult – and using those difficulties to grow closer, not further apart.
This clearly differs from sacral bonding.
Sacral bonding is chemistry, emotional excitement, sensual pull, and the craving to merge.
Heart bonding is genuine care, steadiness, forgiveness, and the ability to repair things when they get difficult.
The heart chakra helps you stay close without clinging.
It helps you hold boundaries without closing your heart.
And it helps you keep loving when life gets messy.
It also helps love to become less conditional, more generous, more selfless, and more expansive.
Heart chakra challenges can be seen in many forms.
You put up walls after you get hurt.
You fear vulnerability, so you hold back.
You overgive and try to fix everything, hoping love will feel safer if you ‘earn’ it.
You sacrifice yourself to keep the peace.
And when conflict hits, you shut down because staying present feels too risky.
Often, you might also struggle to accept support, or you might feel resentment quietly building when your needs stay unspoken or unmet.
What’s more, you can feel lonely even with a partner, because real closeness requires emotional openness.
When your heart chakra is unbalanced, you can repeat the same relationship cycles because you never learned healthy ways to resolve them.
When you have healthy heart chakra energy, it changes your behaviour.
It helps you stay close without clinging.
It helps you hold boundaries without shutting down.
It helps you repair relationships after conflict instead of drifting apart.
It helps you forgive without pretending nothing happened.
And it helps you stay kind and loving, even when you still need to say ‘no’.
Heart Chakra Lever
Emphasise the heart chakra when life calls for healing, deeper intimacy, and compassion with boundaries.
The throat chakra relates to truth, clear expression, and congruence.
It aligns your inner reality with your outer life.
It becomes particularly relevant at this stage of life because relationships and responsibilities tend to become more structured.
Long-term partnerships become more common.
Shared finances, cohabitation, and parenting responsibilities often increase.
Work identity becomes more defined.
Leadership and visibility can take on more importance.
And once life becomes more structured, silence can hurt you more.
Because what you don’t say doesn’t disappear.
Rather, it gives rise to tension, distance, and resentment.
In more structured relationships, unspoken truths cost more because of higher stakes and longer-lasting consequences.
In such relationships, resentment can build quietly over time, and misalignment can sap your energy.
When the throat chakra is out of balance, you can easily start living a life shaped by other people’s expectations, and when this happens, your body will always carry what your voice won’t say.
That said, the throat chakra isn’t necessarily about talking more.
It’s about speaking what is true, clearly and cleanly, so your life doesn’t become a tangle of half-said truths.
A life where you people-please, twist yourself in knots to avoid conflict, and overexplain because you’re desperate for approval.
A life where you swallow the truth until it comes out indirectly as sarcasm, withdrawal, or sudden anger.
Live like that long enough, and you train people to relate to a version of you that isn’t real.
And after that, you’ll feel unseen because you rarely reveal your real inner world, and while your relationships may stay civil, they won’t deepen into real intimacy.
For people who teach or run a business, these throat chakra issues can also show up as undercharging, vague offers, indirect communication, and fear of visibility.
A simple rule of thumb to understand many throat-chakra problems is the following:
What you express gets processed.
What you suppress gets stored.
Meditating on, healing, or strengthening the throat chakra tends to give you clearer boundaries, clearer communication, and greater confidence in being seen.
Throat Chakra Lever
Emphasise the throat chakra when you need to speak the truth cleanly, set boundaries without guilt, and stop hiding behind silence or politeness.
The third eye chakra relates to intuition, inner vision, and the ability to see the bigger picture.
It helps you step back and see the whole.
It helps disparate pieces fall together into something coherent.
It brings perspective.
It helps you see the deeper truth running through your life and recognise the patterns that keep repeating.
This could be the same kind of unavailable partner again and again, the same type of conflict with different people, the same cycles of success and sabotage.
A healthy third eye helps you notice these patterns and choose fresh options.
Unfortunately, the third eye often isn’t in optimal condition, so its messages aren’t always clear.
As a result, an array of third eye challenges can arise.
For instance, you confuse signals born from anxiety with intuition.
You ignore intuition until life forces you to pay attention.
You get lost in mental noise instead of inner clarity.
Or you see the truth, but refuse the change it demands.
These issues often show up as staying too long in misaligned relationships or careers because you keep telling yourself ‘rational’ stories to justify doing so.
Stillness helps here.
If you stop chewing on the same thoughts, you create space for your intuition, space for your third eye to weave its magic.
After that, you get insight.
Not necessarily as a linear argument.
But as a deep, inner knowing.
Meditating on, healing, or strengthening the third eye chakra tends to give you clearer discernment, stronger intuitive clarity, and the ability to break cycles rather than repeat them.
Third Eye Lever
Emphasise the third eye chakra when you need clarity, discernment, and a coherent grasp of the ‘bigger picture’.
The crown chakra connects us to Spirit.
It connects us to the Self with a capital S.
It connects us to something larger than the ego’s story.
This stage often involves gravitating beyond the mundane.
It's one of greater silence, contemplation, and sacredness.
It fosters greater awe and reverence.
A stronger desire to live in the service of something real.
The crown chakra turns your attention to deeper questions.
What is your life actually about?
What remains meaningful when egoic goals fall away?
Crown chakra challenges can include existential restlessness, emptiness after achievements, cynicism (if meaning feels lost), and spiritual bypassing.
In everyday life, it may be seen as burnout resulting from a crisis of meaning.
Success without fulfilment.
Or a longing for peace that external things can’t give.
Meditating on, healing, or strengthening the crown chakra tends to give you a wider perspective, deeper peace, and a more natural movement toward meaning, reverence, service, and fulfilment.
Crown Chakra Lever
Emphasise the crown chakra when achievement feels hollow, and you need perspective, meaning, and real spiritual nourishment.
The chakra cycle doesn’t end after the crown chakra.
It loops, but on a deeper level.
It’s like reading a book for the second time.
Now, you notice the foreshadowing.
You understand why certain moments mattered.
You see motivations you originally missed.
You spot the smaller details and see more clearly how everything fits together.
And similarly for the chakras.
You return to the root chakra again, and you feel more grounded than you did the first time around.
You return to the sacral chakra again, and your emotional flow is more mature, less needy, and less reactive.
You return to the solar plexus chakra, and your will and direction are cleaner, and you have less need to prove yourself.
You return to the heart chakra, and your love is wiser, more stable, and better at holding boundaries.
You return to the throat chakra, and it becomes easier to live your truth, not just speak it.
You return to the third eye chakra, and your intuitive insight has become clearer and sharper.
You return to the crown chakra, and you have a deeper, richer connection to your true Self.
Most likely, you’re still no saint, and each chakra stage will always contain its challenges, but even so, it is a wiser you working with them the second time around. A you that is excited to dive deeper into each chakra energy, and a you that will be forever touched by the mystery and magic each chakra holds.
(Article by Om Reiki Founder, Jeremy O'Carroll)
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If you want an experiential deep dive into the magic of the chakras, join me on February 7–8 for my Mastering Your Chakras Meditation Course. To find out more, visit the chakra meditation homepage.
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