A master is an extraordinary person who is untouched by mental afflictions.
– Yoga Sutra I.24
Do you have a clear long-term vision for your life? Can you find clarity and ease within your mind? Do you have a strong spiritual body?
If you answered no to any of these questions chances are that your sixth chakra, also known as the Third Eye, needs greater balance. This portal of our higher consciousness is positioned between our brows, at the centre of our forehead. We are no longer in the domain of the physical body chakras, this energy point has to do not only with mental clarity but way beyond it — beyond the physical dimension, it’s to do with intuition, foresight, extra sensory perception and telepathy. It’s our psychic centre.
The sixth chakra is associated with the pineal gland located deep within the brain behind the centre of the eyes, it is the size of a pea and is said to be the bridge or gateway for the soul to integrate with the physical body.
The brow centre is called ‘Ajna’ or ‘Agya’ in Sanskrit, meaning ‘Command’. Part of the word ‘Gyan’ translates as knowledge so we can take it to mean command of our intelligence. This chakra tolerates no ‘Maya’ or illusion and is the chakra that allows our prana (life force) to flow, helping us receive truth and wisdom, giving us that extra sensory perception. Ajna is the source of our ability to discern, it gives us the power of discrimination ‘Viveka’ — the state we attempt to achieve through yoga.
The mind creates our reality but ajna helps us to perceive it correctly. When the sixth chakra is strong and healthy, the mind is not clouded by judgement — by knowledge that is limited by how much we have processed our life experiences.
The sattvic, or pure planets, rule here — Jupiter and the Sun — the deliverers of self-awareness and light or clear sight. They offer us the power to sever the binds of darkness or the illusions that we live under. People who have achieved this state are our wisdom-keepers or ‘Gurus’. Many highly sensitive and empathic intuitive types hold this standing within their being and their purpose is to step out from the shadows and teach their wisdom through their gifts. When the mind is undisturbed, a person can become a master — a guru, as the yoga sutra (quoted above) points out.
We can use the chakras as a method for healing our challenges — the physical body and our external reality is formed from the way our energy field is organised. To find the remedy for our daily troubles and stresses, we can look to the chakras to discover what part of our energy is unbalanced. Where is the block, where is the prana not flowing fully? We can use the physical body as an entry point.
You’ll easily recognise a person who functions from the ajna chakra and doesn’t use the physical body as a source of wisdom and grounding. They have a tendency for spiritual bypassing and prefer spiritual ideas over reality to avoid dealing with it. We are here to have a human experience, so to negate the human body is to negate the purpose for being here. You’ll see the tendency for this person to advocate solely for the ‘light’ plastering over the darkness, or the uncomfortable emotions and experiences that life brings.
Hatha Yoga is a path towards integrating dark and light (moon and sun, yin and yang, feminine and masculine polarities) and the third eye supports us in discerning the purpose for the happy and sorrowful experiences of life — it’s not all love and light, and that’s okay. It’s okay to feel pain, to feel shit, to be in grief. The worst thing to stifle our healing is to bypass these experiences. The point I’m making here is to harmonize our lower chakras so that we feel grounded in physical reality before playing with the spiritual energies situated in the upper body.
Through language our mind creates the current binary thinking — our experience of duality (masculine and feminine etc). When we reach ajna successfully, we’re able to attune to dimensions beyond what we experience with our five senses, and therefore beyond dualism which is man-made — this dualistic thinking has been the main cause of female and feminine domination and oppression (because of the meaning man has applied to these polarities).
In the Hindu kundalini yoga system, we can awaken and open the third eye to achieve unification or oneness through uniting the nadis or subtle channels of energy on the left (ida) and right (pingala) sides of the body. The left side is our goddess energy (Shakti/Moon) — the right brain activity and the right side is (Shiva/Sun) — the left brain activity. When they rise up and meet at the centre of the brain, ajna is activated and we enter a state of true sight and bliss, the end of division within the Self.
A person with a strong ajna chakra holds a clear vision of their purpose. They have a deep sense of ‘knowing’ and view reality in a balanced way. Connected with the workings of the wider universe, they have ‘buddhi’ higher intellect, and act from this place of wisdom and truth, but more importantly, self-truth. They are true to their natures and are not influenced by other peoples’ opinions and beliefs. They have strong imaginations and vivid dreams and because of their psychic natures they may experience heightened sensitivity. The mind is clear and directed; they are open-minded and easily able to enter a meditative state. They’re likely to see spiritual numbers frequently like 1111 or 222, 444, 1717 etc., or other forms of energy like auras as they’re connected to higher dimensions.
A person with a weak ajna chakra may experience ailments to do with the brain and mind: lack of clarity and focus; mental fog; depression; headaches and migraines; overthinking, analysing and fatigue and on the extreme end, personality disorders. They may be disconnected from their imagination and not be able to recall dreams or recognise synchronicities and opportunities! There is no belief in the power to manifest their visions. They’re lost and can’t seem to find their place in the world or their sense of interconnectedness. Moreover, they’re unable to make decisions based on the balance between logic and emotions. An overactive chakra here can cause insomnia, mental instability, delusional thinking and even hallucinations because of a lack of grounding in the physical body and in reality.
Ajna is about being your own Seer, your guru, finding your own truth and insight by trusting your intuition and the messages that arrive through the mental, physical, emotional or spiritual realms. It is important to face your fears and anxieties (and therefore your darkness) or they may cloud your intuition and clarity, keeping you from living your purpose.
Below are five ways to start connecting with and balancing your third eye chakra ~
1) Simply release any tension around the brow centre. Close your eyes. Expand your breath into your belly. Exhale, releasing any tension around the face, temples and the back of the ears. You may wish to rub your hands to create heat and then place them briefly over your eyes and the centre of your forehead. Place your hands back down and move your inner gaze towards the centre of your forehead. Watch any thoughts and images or sensations that unfold from here. Observe visions, lines and patterns without any interpretation. Do this every day for a few minutes and see what changes, if any, occur on the mental, emotional, physical or spiritual levels of your being. You may wish to meditate on a purple/indigo colour around this energy centre as this is its hue of this chakra.
2) Spend time in solitude to ‘see’ clearer. (Ha! An easy one for us introverted souls!) Solitude is a sensitive’s best friend! Connect with silence and enter a state of receptivity. And I don’t mean spending hours browsing socials and watching Netflix (this too is overstimulation) — but spending moments observing your thoughts, and better yet, spend time introspecting — writing down your current challenges and feelings (use whichever creative medium you best work with). Reading is also an option, it can be stimulating. Allow yourself to be a channel, see what solitude can offer you in terms of the answers and the clarity you’re craving. Go for a walk. Solitude can purify your energy. Remove yourself from toxic people and situations. In your aloneness you can cultivate the space to see the root cause or the weeds within you that re-create the situations that give you grief. Alone time can restore your energy and give you the strength to pull them out.
3) Look for what you want to see! Or put another way, what you look for, you see — the thing seeks you! For the next week look for miracles, look for opportunities, look for the pleasant things that happen and place your attention there instead of dwelling and complaining about the things that aren’t going your way. Visualise the success of something that you’re currently doing. How does this feel in your body? Stay with this good feeling. Follow the good energy. Go where there is growth and lift your frequency so that good people and things can find you! Every day, make a mental note or write down what inspiring or decent things have come across your attention. Before you sleep, close your eyes and think of three positive things that you did well or achieved, no matter how big or small. Watch how this change of behaviour changes your reality.
4) Practice Qigong. I am in love with this ancient system of energy work, sometimes referred to as the Chinese yoga. I learnt qigong movements over the many years I trained in kung fu. It is healing and restorative and helped miraculously heal my agonising back pain — energy that was trapped in my sacral and root chakras because of long-term narcissistic abuse — (because I didn’t set the intention to get to the root cause of the issue and face the shadow, which obscured my clarity around my circumstances at the time and stopped me from taking the right action.)
Any kind of energy work is great to heal mental, physical, emotional or spiritual challenges. Try the art of Zhan Zhuang or ‘pole standing’ to begin with before you move on to the flowing movements of qigong. (I’ve provided a guide with a meditation timer to help you along! This is also available in my warrior bundle. Practiced daily, this vital stance training can ground you and create a feeling of safety and stability — a sturdy place from which you can open and ‘bloom’ — attune yourself to higher level consciousness. Set an intention for your practice before you begin.
5) Writing Exercise. Grab your journal now and answer these questions to remove blocks from this energy centre to allow you to see more clearly.
How are my sleep patterns affecting my daily life? What changes, if any, would bring more harmony and balance to my schedule? (Sleep is important in healing the energy at the brow centre.)
Do I trust and act on the intuition I receive?
(Give examples of where you trusted and acted upon your intuition and where you went against it.)
What does my spiritual body look like? (Close your eyes and scan over this layer of your being. Describe the first image or message that comes to you. Draw and colour if your wish!)
What messages have I received from my dreams lately? (If possible, try to recall one or two recent dreams and discern their symbolic meanings).
Share your thoughts about your Sixth Chakra — how much do you trust your inner knowing? Can you trust your inner intelligence to guide you in your next steps?
Join the conversation with other highly sensitive people in my Facebook tribe, Warrior Training for the Sensitive Soul.
Catch up with the series:
How to Heal the First Chakra (Muladhara)
How to Heal the Second Chakra (Svadhistana)
How to Heal the Third Chakra (Manipura)
How to Heal the Fourth Chakra (Anahata)
How to Heal the Fifth Chakra (Vishuddha)
Looking for extra support? Work with me one on one or join my 6 week online course to step into your power and align with your vision! (Get my FREE Warrior Bundle for Sensitive Souls when you join my mailing list to keep updated! ➼➼➼ Get the Details
