CHAPTER 1
HOLISM
Health is a large word. It embraces not the body only, but the mind and spirit as well; and not today's pain or pleasure alone, but the whole being and outlook of man. — James H. West
The chakra system is rooted in holism, the concept that the entire person should be addressed to include psychological, spiritual, emotional, mental, and lifestyle factors. Applying holistic practices broadens both the provider's and patient's healing capacity in conventional, alternative, and complementary medicine, so as to enrich the scope of medical practices to optimize a patient's health potential. Holism encompasses occupational environment, lifestyle habits, mental processes, psychological factors, and other experiences that influence one's state of being.
Specifically, the chakra system serves as a holistic model that expounds and directs the influence of all quadrants within the patient's life. For example, an individual may suffer from chronic back pain, even though all medical exams and imaging modalities have shown no evidence of pathology. Holism allows the health practitioner to apply a wider lens of evaluation and treatment for this complaint. Whether due to stress or dysfunctional postural habits, one can better advise the patient in cost-effective, holistic practices rather than immediately turning to surgical interventions or oral painkillers.
Holism also addresses how each part of the body influences one's entire being. In Jon Kabat-Zinn's Full Catastrophe Living, he talks about interconnectedness and wholeness throughout the body:
It is a universe in itself [our body], consisting of more than 10 trillion cells that all ultimately derive from one single cell, organized into tissues and organs and systems and structures, with a built-in ability to regulate itself as a whole to maintain internal balance and order down to the nano level of interacting molecular structures. In a word, our bodies are undeniably self-organizing and self-healing at every level you care to look at ... All these are highly integrated, interconnected regulatory processes operating through elaborate feedback loops.
Our biology is interconnected and self-regulated, meaning that any single piece can positively or negatively affect the entire body. Numerous experiences in our day-to-day living exemplify this theory, such as when we feel sad, we may not have an appetite, or when we are under chronic stress, our bodies may break out in a rash. Our minds and bodies share a sphere of experience, each mirroring the other. Science has validated much of what the ancient yogis have taught in reference to the mind-body connection.
What Are the Chakras?
We are no animals. We are galaxies with skin. — Tara Sophia Mohr
Dating back to 1750-500 BCE, chakras derived from the Vedic culture known for the Vedas, the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. Many holistic practices are products of this culture, which includes theories of awakening, intuitional practice, as well as the belief that the individual is a realization of the self. The chakras are simply an organic formula for the individual to use to become pure or to rebalance in the body.
Chakras — meaning wheel or circle in Sanskrit — are psychospiritual vortices of energy within and surrounding the body. Though many exist, we will focus on the seven main chakras within the body. With that in mind, the idea is that humans manifest from an interplanetary system. For example, the saying "as within, so without" means that the elements of the planet are the same as those within the body itself. The element water is illustrated in the body as fluid, urine, and other unsolidified components: the element earth is illustrated in the body as bone structure, skin, and other physical configurations; fire is demonstrated through body temperature, digestion, and other metabolizing apparatuses; and air is exhibited through respiration, gas, and participates in digestion. Therefore, the Vedic culture believed the human being exists as a fractal of the universe. They used yoga practice and holistic interventions to clean and balance the elements, which would, therefore, clean and balance the system.
The chakras utilize movement, touch, voice, mind, and lifestyle choice to influence anatomical, physiological, and psychological development. They delineate how depending on external influences and choice will yield catalysts to psychophysical expansion or malady in the body. Each chakra expounds glandular reactions with the brain producing tendencies in the human. The yogis identified fifty tendencies associated with different glands throughout the body.
The processes needed to balance the chakras are associated with practices such as meditation, chanting/singing, diet, lifestyle choice, ethics, yoga, and service. Each chakra has specific practices relating to both the neuroendocrine system and psychophysical relationship with the body to influence the specific region it correlates with. As there have been many evidence-based yoga practices that support, prevent, and rehabilitate ailments or injuries, the science behind yoga poses and their effects on the body is ample. Repeating yoga poses or movement patterns puts sustained pressure on key areas throughout the body. These positions also affect the flow of blood and lymphatic fluid throughout the circulatory system. As the body moves through functional patterns, this process helps optimize neuromuscular pathways that decrease discomfort in the body, making it easier for the person to function and live a flourishing life.
Overall, the chakras acknowledge that different people are at different places in their development. This knowledge allows the physician to identify what the patient is facing, thereby offering a better way to meet the patient where he or she is. For the individual, the chakras show up to delineate where the person should work on to enhance his or her own evolution and wellness.
The Chakra Story
When you touch the celestial in your heart, you will realize that the beauty of your soul is so pure, so vast and so devastating that you have no option but to merge with it. You have no option but to feel the rhythm of the universe in the rhythm of your heart. — Amit Ray
The chakras were utilized as a method of returning to a balanced state, or as the Vedic tradition says, "returning to the beloved." They applied the chakras as a lens to discover aspects that were unbalanced within the body. They accessed the chakras through yoga, meditation, breath work, and lifestyle choices to self-correct and heal the imbalances.
The structure of the chakras is demonstrated through realization with this tradition exemplifying how an imbalance secondary to trauma, suffering, grief, and stress may allow one to realize him- or herself. This happens through the Vedic's desire to merge with God or self-purification; thus, removing impurities from the body on psychological, spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental levels is required for balance and health.
The first chakra, known as the root chakra, begins as a delineation of the average, mundane life. This is where one simply exists in a monotonous manner characterized by survival, autopilot, and stability. This space represents one's potential and acknowledges that people vary in their development. This reveals what people can improve upon within themselves to become better and create more purpose.
From this space, one experiences transformation and moves upward to the second or sacral chakra, which is affected by a trauma or any experience that interrupts the average, mundane life. Change, loss, suffering, or trauma may force the individual to move outside his or her comfort zone and experience unfamiliar emotions or contemplations in relationship with life.
The third chakra, the solar plexus chakra, alchemizes the experience of trauma or change – either causing the person to become defeated from the experience or increasingly more motivated and inspired by such experience. Personal transformation occurs from the developed inspiration. Once the discomfort is functionally alchemized it moves upwards.
The fourth chakra, known as the the heart chakra, serves as a location of self-understanding where one decides "what is and isn't me" so as to set healthy boundaries based on previous experiences of discomfort. From here, one begins to practice service to others and healthy boundaries instilling clarity and balance in emotions and contemplations. This state - elicited from one's experiences – moves through the chest up into the fifth chakra, the throat chakra.
The throat chakra encompasses one's ability to express themselves and that which they stand. Creativity and connection manifests here as one becomes more in tune with his or her surroundings. The throat chakra is a place of self-actualization acting as a bridge between the emotional mind and spirit manifesting up into the sixth chakra, the third eye center.
The third eye maintains a relationship with the body's command center in the form of the hypothalamus and pituitary gland which instills an inner knowledge to have the ability to experience intuitive relationships with life and a cultivation of wisdom. Wisdom is the manifestation of healed pain that finally flourishes here in the sixth chakra allowing one to extend compassion and counsel to others, along with developing psycho-spiritual awareness.
With this newly found spiritual cognizance one moves upward to the seventh chakra, known as the crown chakra where the individual experiences a spiritual connection. This is what the Vedic's truly desired. The physiognomies that he or she experiences are surrender, trusting in divine providence, and separation being dissipated. The Vedic culture viewed this as the space of oneness and philosophical concepts.
This elusive description of the chakra story is simply an expression of how the Vedic culture applied the experience of returning to balance in the body and how external influences correlate with internal factors. Applying this model assists the health practitioner in identifying an initial focal point of self- treatment with the patient based on where the patient is in his or her life. The chakra model is a great way to identify where patients are located on the continuum so they may develop within their own personal story leading to self-sustainable wellness.
A Medical and Developmental Lens
Although the chakras come from a philosophical-religious tradition, there appears to be a potential role in the medical realm due to the interdependence of the neuroendocrine system and cognition. These connections represent a relatively new idea in neuroscience research. The major chakras discussed in the story above are directly associated with the neuroendocrine system in addition to serving as mental/emotional centers. The chakras themselves are not physical entities and cannot be held or examined like an object, but exist solely as energy and hold a strong relationship with the physical functioning of our body. Influencing hormones and the body's organization of health, they communicate through fascia tissue. The seven major Chakras are comprised of centers of hormone production or high concentrations of gap junction cells – serving as intercellular networks that allow for rapid signal transfer throughout various parts of the body.
Gap junctions are responsible for many of the transmission of signals required for medications to take effect. Unfortunately some have also shown to block gap junction channels, which can lead to unwanted or secondary effects. One known negative effect that can occur naturally or artificially is called the "bystander effect." When an injured cell receives a signal to die gap junctions may send the same messages to adjacent cells. This can cause the otherwise unaffected healthy bystander cells to also die. Gap junctions do not only provide negative signals as they may also serve a role in wound healing. Specifically, gap junctions may serve to electrically and chemically link cells throughout the body of almost all animals including humans. They are extremely important in the function of cardiac muscle where gap junctions serve to allow the heart to beat by creating a contraction and causing subsequent forward blood flow. Our entire nervous system relies on gap junctions often referred to as an electrical synapse. These connections connect our brain to the rest of our body and allow for nearly instantaneous signal transfer. In the eye, nerve cells within the retina demonstrate large numbers of gap junctions – playing a part in light and color perceptions.
The human body and its systematic interconnections are all joined by the theory of holism as well as through the gap junction interface. As the chakras are not a physical entity, we observe them through cell-to-cell communication and the interactions with the nervous and endocrine systems. When we observe the embryological process in the womb, we see how the chakras influence our beings starting in the developmental stages. They manifest and help coordinate activity as the embryological process begins with multiplication of cells and separation into different cell types or layers. This rapid division and differentiation occurs through chemical signals transferred by gap junctions. As this process continues, the primitive spinal cord also forms – thereby supporting even more rapid electronic and chemical movement and messaging. These transmissions are needed for proper growth and development from undifferentiated cells into the specialized organs of the body. As we see the chakras, though not an organ system, physically exist within areas of high gap junction cell concentration, it is no surprise how much we are impacted by this system.
It is fascinating to observe the role of the chakras in development physically, spiritually, and psychologically. The first chakra relates to the formation of the physical development; hence why it is so rooted in survival and physical comfort. It is here that we begin to discover our right to exist and our right to survive. The second chakra is attributed to more movement and sensation which correlates to the first three years of our life when we are still dependent upon our mother but explore the distinctions between good and bad or pleasure and pain. Psychologically we develop our emotional experience and relationship with the world generating our right to feel. The following years age four to ten are developed in relationship to the third chakra developing ego and connecting with our power. This stage may hold the desire to 'please' others while also developing independence to self create and self define where the shadow of the third also begins to surface which is to feel shame or inadequacy. The child is beginning to process experiences to create will and purpose rooting into the right to act and choose.
By ages ten through fourteen, psychological development exists more in social context and is based upon the right to be loved and love or the right to feel accepted and accept which is sourced by the fourth chakra. These concepts have always been underlain but now are being actualized and the individual is much more aware of these experiences. At this point we have picked up on social cues that influence our relationship with others and how we hold relationship with ourselves in the social scheme where we begin to move into initiative and alchemize the power from the third chakra. The fifth chakra is the manifestation of voice and creative expression. Ages fourteen through eighteen hold the key for this development as one begins to express who they are and explore the meaning of the human experience. This influences the craving to do something that contributes to the world and others along with affirming the right to be heard and speaking in truth.
