The Heart Chakra: Meanings, Properties and Powers

Heart Chakra Meaning

The heart chakra, which is also known as Anahata in Sanskrit, colors your life with beauty, love, and compassion. Motivated by the principles of integration and transformation, the heart chakra bridges earthly and spiritual aspirations. The main meanings and functions that are associated with the heart chakra involve your love for yourself and for others. This is the chakra that governs how you relate to people and how you handle relationships. The heart chakra gives empathy and compassion, and it’s responsible for your ability to forgive and accept. It’s also the chakra involved in changes and transformations. With the heart chakra, you are able to grieve properly and attain peace and tranquility. You are able to remain compassionate and achieve complete discernment. It’s the center of your awareness and the integration of your insights. When the heart chakra is free and unblocked, you will feel deeply connected, and you will experience a harmonious exchange of energies with all that’s around you. You will have a better appreciation of beauty, wonder, and magic. However, when there’s something blocking your heart chakra, you will experience difficulties in how you relate to other people. You will experience excessive jealousy and codependency. You will also become withdrawn and closed off.

Heart Chakra Color

Even though most people think that pink is the color of the heart chakra, it’s actually associated with the color green. The auric color of this chakra is seen as a smoky pink, which is a popular depiction of love and romance. Green is composed of blue and yellow in equal parts. It’s the color of love and resides at the very center of your being, which is the heart center. Green is the energy color of transformation and love. It lets you transform your ego and the needs of your lower chakras and allow them to open up to love. Green color chakra fills you with inspiration to become more loving and compassionate. It’s the color of balance, life, and growth. It is through balance that you discover the center from which you can love, build healthy and nurturing relationships, and give and accept love. The energy of the green color chakra is calming and soothing, like a soft blanket of grass under your feet. It’s the color of nature, the trees, and the grass. As you unfurl the petals of your heart chakra, you can also discover the seat of compassion, not only for others but for yourself, too. You start to radiate love, and you begin to feel the interconnectedness of everything in life.

On a physical level, the green color chakra relates to the cardiac nerve plexus, thymus gland, breasts, arms, shoulders, chest, lungs, and heart. People with strong green chakra energy stand tall and give out energies of openness. Those with weak green chakra energy appear tight in their upper bodies because they are slouching, with their shoulders dropping forward. They are protecting the heart center, making their head and neck drop forward as well. The gifts of this chakra color include a strong heart and a healthy blood circulation. It also boasts of a healthy immune system. People with this chakra color are strong in the upper body and flexible in the neck and upper back. They also have very high lung capacity. The physical challenges of this color chakra include heart problems, lung problems, painful and tight muscles in the upper body, and an imbalanced immune system.

On a mental level, green color chakra means growth and expansion. It makes forming connections with others and with the deeper parts of yourself so much easier. Green color chakra brings the energies of freedom and development. It’s the building block of your self-acceptance and your acceptance of others. Green represents the development phase when you begin to form relationships with friends and family. When the heart chakra becomes blocked or imbalanced, this is usually the cause. You get wounded in your personal relationships, and you heal from your relationships as well. When the green color chakra is strong, you become more sociable, and you can effortlessly combine emotion with reason. You can see the connection and the importance of having a good balance between the two. But when this color chakra is weak, you become critical and demanding. You start to demand perfection because you only use your reason and intellect, not your emotions.

On an emotional level, green is an expansive color. The gift of this color is that you radiate love and peace to let others know that they are accepted for who they are.

When this energy becomes blocked or excessive, it becomes a contraction of this soothing and loving energy. Green makes you more loving and compassionate. It sets healthy boundaries for you so that you will remain emotionally balanced. This color teaches you to love yourself so that you will be able to love others and maintain healthy relationships. It also reminds you to stay friendly and be more empathetic to the plight of others. When there’s a weak green energy, the tendency is to become overly critical and judgmental of yourself and of others. You also become very irritable and jealous.

You lack compassion and become narcissistic. There are also weak or poor boundaries that leave you paranoid and defenseless.

On a spiritual level, green color chakra gives you instinctual knowing and growing with the spirit. From a spiritual point of view, it reminds you that you are entering the wonder and power of love. When the green energy is strong, you become more compassionate, altruistic, peaceful, and serene. You are aware that your emotions are a part of something bigger, and that everything is interconnected. You understand the real meaning of unconditional love, and you strive to give yourself love. There will also be challenges for the green color chakra because when there is an imbalance, you can experience overwhelming grief. You will not be able to see or feel your connection with the bigger life that’s waiting for you. You will be stuck in what the lower chakras need, and you will feel lonely and isolated. There will be love in your heart, but there will also be fear.

Heart Chakra Symbol

The symbol for the heart chakra is a circle with twelve petals. There’s a downward-pointing triangle that is interlaced with an upward-pointing triangle, creating a hexagram or a six-pointed star. The intersecting triangles symbolize the air element and its all-encompassing attributes. They also represent the union of opposite energies or principles, like male and female energies, and spirit and matter. The star that this symbol creates radiates the harmonious union of forces and features the function of the heart chakra as a center of connection and integration. The twelve petals are usually depicted with the color red. You will often find that the heart chakra symbol features in artwork, on clothing or in jewelry that is designed to work with this chakra in the most effective way. It is a very distinct, and very beautiful, symbol! Many people looking to heal their heart chakras do so by visualizing this symbol as they sink into meditation.

Heart Chakra Location

The heart chakra can be found in the center of the chest. It’s the fourth chakra from the bottom of the spine in the traditional seven chakra system. The most commonly accepted location for this chakra is the center of the chest, right in the middle of the breasts. It’s a little to the left of the actual heart, which is why it’s often called the heart chakra. As the fourth chakra, it’s important to know that it is multi-dimensional. It is energetically symbolized with a front going through the middle of the chest, and a back going through the spine right in the middle of the shoulder blades. Because of the heart chakra’s location, it’s associated with the lungs and the cardiac system. These are interdependent organs and rely on their breathing functions to function properly. It’s also associated with the thymus gland that’s in charge of controlling the immune system.

Traits and Characteristics of the Heart Chakra

The heart chakra is associated with your ability to love. It’s about integration, and it acts as a bridge between your earthy and spiritual desires. This chakra transcends your personal identity and your limitations on your ego. It allows you the experience of love and connection with everyone and everything. The heart chakra has a heart-centered discernment. It gives you the gift of appreciation for the beauty of everything. Its energies focus on experiencing meaningful and deep relationships. It’s the heart chakra that connects the lower chakras with the upper chakras. It’s the heart chakra that acts as the center of integration of your higher aspirations and your earthly matters. The heart chakra is all about relating and connecting. The emphasis of this chakra is on love, sharing, and receiving, and how open you are in your relationships. The heart chakra helps you convert your experiences and emotions. This makes it an essential part of any relationship, whether it is with other people or with yourself. Love that is felt through the heart chakra is not just about romance, but about going beyond the limitations of your ego and your personal preoccupations. When you live from your heart, and your heart energy is balanced and opened, you can see clearly and you can position yourself in any situation.

The heart chakra is a center where you can experience beauty in life.

Looking at the world through a healthy heart chakra is being in a state of acceptance and openness that brings you in touch with your world. When the heart chakra becomes weakened by circumstances or has not yet developed properly, it will have the tendency to be overactive or blocked. These are imbalances that you can address by harmonizing the chakras and supporting the heart chakra in developing a healthier way to handle energy. The heart chakra becomes overactive because it’s compensating for blocked energies in other chakras. Part of healing an overactive heart chakra is determining which other chakras are blocked. This way, you can work on opening them and bringing them back to balance. Focusing on the heart chakra will still help you manage the symptoms. Meditation and energy healing on the heart will smoothen the flow of energies through it.

What Causes a Heart Chakra Imbalance?

The heart chakra is central to your ability to give and accept love. Emotions that are connected with the heart chakra include love, anger, bitterness, hate, grief, resentment, forgiveness, loneliness, compassion, loyalty, self-centeredness, trust, generosity, gratitude, commitment, and the ability to follow one’s heart. Issues and life experiences that impact the heart chakra include the death of a loved one, rejection, breach of trust, abandonment, adultery, divorce, injustice, and emotional abuse. Heart chakra pain is often related to having a broken heart from being disappointed in some way by someone you love. Loss, trauma, grief, abuse, and rejection are all emotionally painful to go through and can leave an energetic impression on the heart chakra. When the energy in this chakra becomes blocked or disturbed, you will experience a surge of negative and painful emotions.

The heart chakra is vulnerable to disruptions associated with love and relationships.

Everyone has a history of relationships. In this history, there are many things that gave you both positive and negative experiences about love and loving others. As you encounter life’s challenges, there are two ways that you can cope. You can choose to shut down and reduce the energy that you spend on the situation, or you can increase the energy to fight it. These defense mechanisms become anchored to your chakras. As time passes, these defense mechanisms cause the imbalance in the chakras.

Overactive Heart Chakra

When the heart chakra is overactive, it can lead to a lack of wisdom and discernment in relationships. The heart chakra is often seen as the point of integration for your altruistic and personal aspirations through love and relationships. When this energy center goes on overdrive, it can obscure the boundaries between yourself and others to the point of losing your identity and abusing the power of love.

The heart chakra is linked to love and emotions.

People with an overactive heart chakra are ruled by their emotions. They may find it difficult to manage them or to let go of the pain of the past. Common symptoms of an overactive heart chakra include an indiscriminate way of loving. There is a lack or an absence of boundaries in both platonic and romantic relationships. There is also a tendency to tolerate too much from others to the point of neglecting your needs and desires. When the heart chakra is overactive, you just accept other people in your life without discernment, and you lose your sense of identity. There’s a tendency to give too much to others, and you just say yes to everyone, even it does not benefit you. An overactive heart chakra causes codependency. It also manifests physically as heart and circulation problems, like heart palpitations, heart attacks, and high blood pressure.

5 of the Most Common Blocked Heart Chakra Symptoms

The heart chakra can become closed off or imbalanced as a result of life experiences that have a powerful emotional or physical charge. The blockage can manifest in the energy flow or in the tendency to become overactive.

• When the heart chakra is blocked, you become overly defensive.

• You also feel closed down.

• You become jealous and fear intimacy.

• You also rely too much on other people’s attention and approval. You try to please everyone at all costs.

• You also put yourself in the role of the rescuer or savior.

Heart Chakra Healing in 10 Steps

1. Go green.

Green can soothe the hyperactivity in the heart chakra. Go outdoors and surround yourself with nature.Hike through the forest, or simply sit outside and enjoy the nice day. Even opening a window and letting the fresh air in can give you a good start.

2. Wear green.

Wear green or surround yourself with the color green. Fill your home or office with this color so that you can gently nudge your heart chakra into healing.

3. Let it go.

Learn to forgive yourself for the mistakes that you have committed in the past. Release the blockages in your heart chakra by releasing your resentments from your past hurts. Find the lesson in every painful experience and let go of what hurts you so that you can begin the process of healing. Practice self-love and self-respect. Send love and appreciation toward the part of yourself that you always neglect or criticize. Keep doing this and over time, you will build a strong core of self-love!

4. Meditate regularly.

Visualize your heart chakra as a radiant and beautiful green orb that glows with unconditional love. Imagine all your hurts and disappointments dissolving and healing themselves. Hold on to these images until the hurt disappears and you get back the lightness in your being.

5. Keep a gratitude journal.

Write down at least five things that you feel grateful for at the end of each day. Read what you wrote the previous night when you wake up the following morning. Breathe the feeling of gratitude in and out of your heart chakra before you start your day. When you are reminded of the fact that you are very blessed, you will live each day mindfully and purposefully.

6. Practice kindness. Make it a habit to send genuine and loving good wishes to yourself and to other people. When you start the day with kindness, you will be inspired to be kind the whole day, every day. Be kind to people, even if they don’t deserve your kindness. Just keep paying it forward, and people will realize the value of your gestures sooner rather than later.

7. Engage in activities that make your heart happy. When you do the things that make you feel alive and inspired, your heart will be happier and more fulfilled each day. All the fears and worries will be dissolved, and you will have more space in your heart for love and other wonderful things. They don’t need to be big and fancy. These things can be small and simple, or old and forgotten. As long as they make you happy, go all out and make them happen!

8. Focus on giving instead of receiving. The more you give, the more you will receive. When you give without expecting anything in return, you become blessed a thousandfold! Give love to people, even when you know they don’t deserve it. The more you love, the more you will realize that your capacity for love is so much bigger.

9. Reflect on old wounds. Think about your old emotional wounds and how they have changed you as a person. Are you a better person because of them, or are you weaker, sadder, or more negative? Come to terms with your old wounds with kindness and compassion. Forgive yourself and learn to let go of what weighs heavily in your heart so that you will feel light and free. Remember that the longer and tighter you hold on to your pain, the more deeply it will hurt and leave a scar on you.

10. Express your gratitude. Even if it’s in silence, express how grateful you are for something or someone. They make your life worthwhile, so make sure that they know you are thankful for them. When you acknowledge your blessings and thank the Source, you are blessing yourself with even more blessings! When you tell the universe how much you appreciate something, it will bless you with more gifts that will make life even more worthwhile.