As readers of this magazine, you are more aware than most about the importance of your energy centers, known as the chakras (wheels). But have you “checked in” lately? Have you tried to correlate what is happening in your life with where you may be blocked in a particular chakra? Sometimes we forget to use the information we know, so the following is a checklist of sorts to see how your energy system is doing.

Try doing it like a meditation. First, let whatever you’ve had to deal with today, whatever you’re worried about, let those things float away so you’ll be able to bring your full attention to your inner space. We all have some distortion in every chakra. All we want to do is bring our awareness to them. Every time we focus on a chakra, we encourage it to expand. We help balance its shape and its direction simply by bringing our attention to it.

First Chakra
Take a breath as you bring your focus to your first energy center at the base of your genitals. The first chakra is the center of your physical body and the energy system. It’s the foundation for both your emotional and physical health. Just feel into it. Picture its bright red color and the way it circles gently in a clockwise direction.

The themes of the first chakra are trust, safety, security, and survival. It connects us to Mother Earth. When our first energy center is working optimally, we are very present. We feel our bodies. We feel like we’re here, like our feet are actually on the earth. We feel like we’re one—one with the earth, with the people that are on it. We feel like we’re home. We have a sense of belonging.

Visualize your first chakra gently circling in a clockwise direction, bringing in energy from the earth, sending energy out into the world.

We know we’re not very grounded if we don’t feel connected to the earth, if we have a lot of phobias, or if we’re anxious or restless or can’t settle down. Those are all signs that we need to bring our focus to this area of our body. Other signs that we need to put more attention on the first chakra are: if we have financial difficulty, if we’re low in energy or lack physical power, if we’re disorganized, if we neglect ourselves, if we’re malnourished or are fighting an eating disorder, or if we’re afraid to change.

Ask yourself:
• Do I feel fully present and grounded most of the time?
• Do I feel connected to the earth?
• How am I doing with abundance and prosperity and vitality and good health?
• Do I have the ability to relax and be still?
• Can I stand up for and nourish myself?
• Do I have a sense of trust in the world?
• Do I feel stable?
• Do I feel like I’m home?

Second Chakra
Moving up slightly about halfway between your first chakra and your waist, bring your attention to the second chakra. It’s a beautiful orange color. Visualize it circling ever so gently. The second chakra is the seat of your emotional body, the center of your connection to others. It represents your ethics and honor in relationship. It’s all about money and sex and power and control.

The distortions in the second chakra are dependency, depression, defensiveness, when we feel abandoned or betrayed unreasonably, when we fear losing control, or being controlled. It’s the theme of the wounded or abandoned child versus the divine child.

Ask yourself:
• Do I feel spontaneous and vital?
• Am I sexually alive?
• Do I have integrity?
• Am I nurturing myself and others?
• Do I lack of passion in my pursuits?
• Do I deny myself pleasure or am I addicted to pleasure?
• Am I inclined to be excessive, with poor boundaries, invading others’ space?
• Am I excessively sensitive or emotionally dependent?
• Do I act out sexually or tend to be seductively manipulative?
• Do I have obsessive attachments? Third Chakra

Move gently up to the third chakra, two or three inches above your waist. It’s the seat of your mental body, where you identify with your ego. Picture its beautiful bright yellow color, and see it circling clockwise, bringing in energy from your environment, sending out energy. It’s always in a state of dynamic exchange. In contrast to the second chakra, which was all about your relationship with others, the third chakra is all about your individuality, you relationship with yourself. Pause and think about self-worth and power and who you are within this reality.

When the third chakra is integrated, you can initiate movement, have fluid motion, feel self -confident, and accept yourself. Your will and divine will are aligned.

Ask yourself:
• Am I on outward push, trying to control other people?
• Am I always trying to achieve outward success?
• Am I overly aggressive?
• Or am I on inward collapse?
• Do I feel helpless, like a victim?
• Am I involved with shame-based behavior?

Fourth Chakra
Move up to the fourth chakra, the heart—the bridge between our humanity, the lower three chakras, and our spirit, the upper three. The fourth chakra, a beautiful green color, is the seat of the astral body, where you connect to the astral plane. Feel into its theme of unconditional love, gratitude, connectiveness, going beyond ourselves, following our hearts, letting go and letting God. Feel into the issues of giving and receiving love, intimacy, devotion, being able to express emotional pain. When it’s integrated, our heart is loving and compassionate and altruistic. It’s able to forgive and accept ourselves and others. It represents commitment, dedication, hope, and trust.

Ask yourself:
• Is my heart open?
• Am I self-centered or too self-sacrificing?
• Do I forgive and accept myself as I am?
• Do I harbor anger, hatred, resentment, jealousy, or bitterness?
• Am I overly critical or judgmental?
• Am I too demanding?
• Do I feel lonely, separated, withdrawn, depressed, or hopeless?
• Am I stuck in grief and sadness, long past the time it should have ceased?
• Am I overly fearful of betrayal? Or do I attract betrayal to myself?
Go to the back of your heart chakra, right in the center of your back (the center of will), and ask yourself:
• Do I have upper back problems?
• Am I always needing massage, or chiropractic adjustment for my upper back?
• Am I trying to operate from will? Am I trying to will everything to happen in my life?

Fifth Chakra
Move up to the center of your throat, where your thyroid gland is located, to the fifth chakra—the seat of the blueprint of your physical body. Take a deep breath and breathe into that area; see the cobalt blue color as it circles gently clockwise.

The fifth chakra is the bridge between your inner and outer world and the bridge between your head and your heart. It’s the center of choice and consequence, with the themes of creativity, manifestation, communication, self-expression, listening, and the power of choice. We make thousands of choices daily, and they manifest through our fifth chakra.

When this chakra is integrated, you are living creatively with a good sense of timing and rhythm. You have clear communication, and listen well. You seek and hear the truth. You have faith. You take personal responsibility. You’re honest with yourself, and you know yourself.

Ask yourself:
• Do I have my own voice or do I seek to say what others want to hear?
• Can I communicate effectively?
• Do I take responsibility for my needs?
• Am I able to both give and receive?
• Am I able to listen to or act on inner guidance?
• Do I have a good sense of timing and rhythm?
• Do I blame others for lack in my life?
• Am I a control freak?

Sixth Chakra
Move up to the sixth chakra in the center of your forehead, the “third eye” right between your eyebrows. It’s a soft violet color. See it circling ever so gently, bringing in information and energy and sending out information and energy into your environment. It’s the seat of the celestial body and the key to discernment. Meditate on its themes of truth, intuitive sight, clairvoyance, detachment from personal mind and entrance to the open mind that lets you connect with universal information.

An integrated sixth chakra gives the ability to visualize and to implement creative ideas. It allows you to think symbolically, to remember and understand your dreams. It provides you with a good memory and the ability to concentrate, to be intuitive and perceptive.

Ask yourself:
• Do I have a willingness to look within?
• Am I willing to validate my intuitive and psychic experiences?
• Am I comfortable expanding my concept of reality or do I deny my perceptions?
• Do I trust what I can’t see more than what I can see?
• Do I have a good memory?
• Do I have a hard time concentrating?
• Do I project negative beliefs outward or on myself?
• Do I remember my dreams?

Seventh Chakra
Focus your attention at the very top of your head and picture the seventh chakra circling in gold or white light. The seventh chakra is the seat of your connection to spirit and the chakra of truth. It connects you to God, to your God-self, and to the entire universe. It’s themes are prayer and meditation, spirituality, devotion, faith and inspiration, and being able to live in the present moment.

When the seventh chakra is integrated and open, you can sense your spiritual connection, have wisdom and mastery, and are able to question and be open-minded. You can perceive and assimilate information. You have a sense of oneness and you live with trust in a higher power.

Ask yourself:
• Do I attract light?
• Do I have a rigid religious belief system or a spiritual addiction?
• Do I over-rationalize?
• Am I often confused?

A Protective Shield
Take another deep breath and bring your attention to the very top of your head. Breathe into it and visualize very strongly that gold or white light cascading down and gently covering your entire body. Take another deep breath and pull the light down, down to your feet. Using your intent, feel it at the bottom of your feet. Know that you are completely shielded and safe inside this container of energy. It will protect you wherever you go.

Deborah King is a health & wellness expert, a frequent guest on CNN, Fox News, the Montel Williams Show, a national keynote speaker, and a “healer to the stars.” She addresses issues of dysfunctional relationships, physical disease, addiction, depression, weight problems, violence, and other ills that plague not only celebrities, but all of us. Deborah regularly hosts seminars, where she guides thousands to recovery in public appearances across the country. Deborah was a successful corporate attorney and hotel developer when she was diagnosed with cancer in her twenties and began a quest for healing that would radically change her life. Her amazing recovery led her to leave the corporate arena for the alternative medical field, where she mastered ancient and modern healing systems, ultimately developing a powerful technique of her own. Her revelatory new book, Truth Heals: What You Hide Can Hurt You (to be released by Hay House in September), probes the stark, naked, unadulterated truth—and its potent impact on the distorted energies that produce the health issues we encounter between birth and death.

www.deborahkingcenter.com