1 · Muladhara · Earth
Root
Governs safety, survival and belonging.
Balanced. Grounded, secure, able to rest without scanning for threat.
Blocked. Anxiety about money and safety, restlessness, feeling you have no place.
The seven chakras
Root to crown — what each governs, and what it looks like when it is not working.
| # | Chakra | Sanskrit | Colour | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Root | Muladhara | Red | Base of the spine |
| 2 | Sacral | Svadhisthana | Orange | Lower abdomen |
| 3 | Solar Plexus | Manipura | Yellow | Upper abdomen |
| 4 | Heart | Anahata | Green | Centre of the chest |
| 5 | Throat | Vishuddha | Blue | Throat |
| 6 | Third Eye | Ajna | Indigo | Between the eyebrows |
| 7 | Crown | Sahasrara | Violet or white | Top of the head |
2 · Svadhisthana · Water
Sacral
Governs pleasure, creativity and emotional flow.
Balanced. Able to enjoy things without guilt and to create without an audience.
Blocked. Numbness, creative block, or the opposite — appetite used as anaesthetic.
3 · Manipura · Fire
Solar Plexus
Governs will, confidence and personal power.
Balanced. Able to decide and to hold a boundary without escalating.
Blocked. Indecision, people-pleasing, or control exercised over small things.
4 · Anahata · Air
Heart
Governs love, compassion and connection.
Balanced. Open without being porous. Able to give and to receive.
Blocked. Guardedness, resentment, or giving until there is nothing left.
5 · Vishuddha · Ether
Throat
Governs expression and truth.
Balanced. Says the thing accurately, at the time it needs saying.
Blocked. Swallowed words, or talking constantly to avoid saying anything.
6 · Ajna · Light
Third Eye
Governs insight, intuition and perspective.
Balanced. Trusts its own read of a situation without needing it confirmed.
Blocked. Overthinking, or dismissing what you noticed because you cannot justify it.
7 · Sahasrara · Thought
Crown
Governs meaning and connection to something larger.
Balanced. A working sense that life has shape, held without dogma.
Blocked. Cynicism, or spiritual certainty used as a way to stop asking.
What the chakra system is
The seven-chakra model comes from Indian tantric traditions documented from around the eighth century, and reached the West largely through a 1919 translation by John Woodroffe. There is no anatomical structure at these locations and no measurable energy field.
What it does provide is a map for locating feeling in the body — and people are remarkably consistent about where they feel things. Anxiety sits in the stomach, grief in the chest, unspoken words in the throat. A vocabulary for that is useful whatever you think about energy.