How your Chakras can help you Nurture a more Intuitive Relationship with Food
Is it possible that ancient chakra philosophy can help you understand and improve your connection with your food, and find freedom from unhelpful eating patterns?
Like many, I was first introduced to the concept of the chakras through Yoga, and deepening my understanding of this incredible energy system, and how to work with it to enhance self-awareness, health and wellbeing, has been a game-changer for me.
Intuitive and enlightening, I’ve used the chakra system as the basis of my framework for The Gut Reaction Method™, my liberating approach to helping people overcome the barriers to a healthy relationship with food, and also as a basis for the women’s retreat that I co-host in Turkey.
In my this blog, I explain what the chakra system is all about, and why and how I draw on it as part of my approach to helping people unlock a path towards peace with food.
We EACH have a personal energy map
It is now widely acknowledged that surrounding our physical bodies are energy fields that are created by the collective vibration of our various energy systems. But did you know this philosophy has origins in Indian Vedic scriptures, over 2000 years old?
According to yogic science, the human body has nine major energy systems of which the chakra system is just one. Chakras are spinning wheels of subtle energy where energy meridians (lines) intersect and the body is very open to receiving energy from all sources. Here the chakras create portals connecting the physical self with more subtle energetic bodies. Whilst they can’t be seen by the human eye, they can be sensed with intuition.
The name chakra actually comes from the Sanskrit word for wheel, in reference to the chariot wheels of rulers called cakravartins (the original “cakra” was pronounced with a “ch,” but we usually see it written now as “chakra”).
The seven major chakras run in a line along the central Meridien from the base of a person’s spine to the crown of their head. The flow of energy through and from the circuitry of this system is thought to play a role in physical, psycho-emotional and spiritual wellbeing. And the individual chakras each serve their own set of functions in relation to health and happiness too.
Each chakra is associated with the area of the physical body in which it resides, which it helps to keep healthy by removing stagnant energy and bringing in the new. And each one is also associated with a core life theme or aspect of your total being. For example, specific chakras contribute to sense of belonging and safety, creativity, confidence and motivation, compassion, authenticity, intuition and sense of purpose.
As chakras act as ‘containers’ for energy from all your thoughts, feelings, memories and experiences, including the effects of day-to-day life, societal pressures, past traumas and ancestral patterns, this stored energy is thought to impact your current mindset, emotional state, behaviours, and how the core chakra themes play out for you - in turn influencing the course of your life, relationships and health.
When all seven of our chakras are harmoniously humming along, and the energy (otherwise known as chi or prana) is flowing smoothly and evenly in a spiral fashion between one another and between the outside world, this allows for a more profound connection to our intuition and bodily signals, as well as the environment around us. We will feel well, inspired by life, in-tune with nature, and content within ourselves.
But when the flow of energy is depleted or gets stuck, we can feel stuck in life. This is because a stagnant, out of balance (overactive or under-active), or closed chakra restricts the flow in the system, leading us to feel disconnected from ourselves and the natural environment. This is also when a range of physical issues could manifest, and we might experience discomfort, pain or even illness in the corresponding area as the body attempts to clear the energy.
There are many ways you can support the process of releasing old energy, calling in the new and keeping this system healthy and harmonious, so it can help you healthy and harmonious too. There is a Yogic saying ‘Where our attention goes, energy flows.” There are many ways to activate or open chakras, but simply bringing more awareness to the system, understanding what each chakra represents, and gently starting to identify anything you’d like to ‘let go off’ is a great first step.
Ancient wisdom meets modern science
Whilst the chakra system is rooted in spiritual traditions that came into being well before the scientific and medical understanding of the human body we have today was established, a fascinating connection is that this ancient energy map corresponds with what we now call in modern, western medicine: the pyscho-neuro-endocrine system (PNE).
The PNE system is a science-lead framework which refers to the complex interplay between the mind (psycho), the nervous system (neuro), and the endocrine system (glands that secrete hormones - the chemical messengers that help run your body). This system is said to regulate various bodily functions, including emotions, cognition, stress response, and hormonal balance. And guess what - the placement of the seven chakras overlays the seven major hormonal glands, nerve centres and related physiology.
It was my study with the prolific functional medicine nutritionist, Dr Deanna Minich, who combines modern science with ancient wisdom through her own chakra-based health framework, that really opened my eyes to these correlations. Her work gave me a new lens through which to identify the connections between people’s health and how they eat and how they live, as well as new tools to add more depth and dimension to nutritional support and lifestyle medicine.
INSPIRATION FOR THE GUT REACTION METHOD™
Working with my clients through various challenges such as chronic dieting and weight cycling, overeating, emotional eating, nutrition overwhelm, to poor self-care - I started to observe correlations between people’s presenting challenges, the underlying reasons that unhelpful food and body behaviours transpired in the first place (the blocks impeding their ability to engage in intuitive eating), and the core chakra themes.
Consequently, a chakra-inspired framework forms the basis of The Gut Reaction Method™, providing an enlightening lens through which to help my clients bring another layer of insight and awareness to the barriers in the way of them listening to and responding intuitively to their bodies and nourishing their ‘whole selves’.
Awareness is the first stage to getting unstuck from old patterns and mindsets (and energy imprints!) and helps clear the path for a more intuitive, supportive connection with the body, food and nutrition.
ACTIVATING your intuition around food
Whether or not we acknowledge it’s existence, we all have intuitive wisdom. Often described as our ‘gut feelings’, our intuition is our innate ability to understand or know something to be true to us, without relying solely on conscious reasoning or external information. It’s our inner guidance or support system that brings together body, mind and spirit.
In Intuitive Eating, the definition of intuition centres on listening to and trusting one’s body and one’s self to guide our eating experiences.
I believe that ultimately an intuitive, peaceful relationship with food is a healthy relationship with food. So, when it comes to helping my clients find more harmony in their approach to eating, the work I do to help them reacquaint themselves with their own intuition is a key part of building their confidence and self-trust in the long-run.
Some examples of barriers to intuition around food that people commonly experience include getting hooked by external messages from diet culture, media pressure to diet, following food rules, familial patterns and upbringing, body dissatisfaction, trying to adhere to view points imposed by other people, generally having a busy life and high stress load, and a lack of coping strategies to handle difficult emotions. These are all explored in my framework, the 7 Dynamics of a Healthy Relationship with Food and Body.
The chakras are thought to play a role in the integration of our intuition too. When they are humming along harmoniously and our energy flows freely, this may help enable us to more deeply connect with our innate bodily wisdom and make food choices in intuitive ways that are more aligned with our being. And when we eat in ways that feel aligned with our bodies, minds and spirits, we positively influence the health of our chakras too. Conversely, if chakras are disrupted or blocked this could impair our intuition, compromising our ability to make those aligned food choices and potentially affecting our sense of wellbeing and physical health too.
NOURISHING THe RAINBOW INSIDE OF YOU
My teacher Dr Deanna Minich is a pioneer in the growing studies exploring and evidencing the connections between polyphenols, the thousands of colourful pigments in whole foods and their roles in supporting seven major aspects of human physiology - effectively validating the concept of ‘eating a rainbow’ for health.
In various holistic healing systems and traditions, including some branches of Ayurveda and energy medicine, there is a belief that different foods possess energetic properties, including colour and vibration. Consuming foods of specific colours is thought to enhance the chakras of corresponding colours, and consuming higher-vibrational foods is thought to positively impact our energy field and overall wellbeing. Whilst these concepts are unproven, not universally accepted and off-tangent to the education around nutrition that I provide at Gut Reaction, I still choose to approach them with an open mind. Could it be that modern science is yet to catch-up with these philosophies?
CONCLUSIONS
I believe a lot of wisdom is held within ancient systems of health and healing such as the chakras, that even in the modern day can be harnessed to help us to make better sense of our health and habits and improve our intuitive connections with our bodies and with food.
If we are receptive to these holistic perspectives, they have the potential to deepen our appreciation of food and recognise that what we choose to eat may have symbolic and energetic significance beyond nutritional and functional dimensions alone.
And, perhaps most importantly, how we eat and our relationship with food can be approached with far greater sensitivity, not only towards our physical health, but our emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing too.
Next steps
Are you looking for a fresh approach to nutrition and nourishment that values your physical and emotional wellbeing?
My personalised support brings together Nutritional Therapy with Intuitive Eating, empowering you to overcome your barriers to living a healthier life in harmony with food and your body.
If you would you benefit from this type of support, then please check out my private programmes here, or contact me for an exploratory chat to find out more.
Does the concept of the chakras resonate with you? Ready to reclaim your energy and revitalise your self-care habits? Then check-out our Revive & Thrive Retreat held in beautiful Turkiye.
