In a previous blog post, I shared how I found my way to yoga and how yoga helped me to heal anxiety.

Today I'm sharing another ancient science that has helped me balance out something else that I was diagnosed with back in 2003; Grave's Dis-ease (GD).

Throughout my journey of yoga, I discovered many resources along the way that helped me to turn inward, look at how I was interacting with the world and how I was interacting with others and myself. One of those helpful resources lead me into the world of the chakras.

I dove into the chakras a little bit here and there throughout the beginning of my yoga journey, but it wasn't until the GD diagnosis that I took a deep dive into the chakras.

You see, me being me lol, I did the same thing I did when I found out I was dealing with chronic anxiety and panic attacks. I went to the book store and read every single book I could get my hands on relating to GD, what it is and what I could do about it.

I read many books on the thyroid and then I dove into a ton of natural remedy books. I didn't feel too bad at the beginning of the diagnosis, and I believe that was because I was diagnosed before I became very symptomatic.

Let me explain how this all came to be.

One day, back in 2003, (before I became a teacher) I was taking a yoga class and within the first 5 minutes my muscles starting quivering in downward facing dog. That was very unusual for me. So I went to the doctor figuring it had something to do with blood sugar issues as that runs in my family. But it wasn't. It was GD.

To make a long story short, I went to an endocrinologist and they wanted me to do a treatment that basically would kill my thyroid. Something just didn't feel right to me about that. Every time I thought of it, I saw a brick wall in front of me, so I took that as my gut telling me, NO, that's not for you.

Believe me, I was, and still am, grateful that there was something I could do if my research didn't help me. But here I am, 20 years later, doing just fine.

Now, getting back to the chakras...

We have 7 main chakras that run along our spine (and many others throughout the body, but we mainly hear about 7 of them), through an energy channel called the sushumna; the central channel for the flow of prana (life force energy) throughout the body. It connects the first chakra at the base of the spine, to the 7th chakra just at and above the crown of the head.

The chakras are wheels or vortexes of energy that relay information between our subtle and physical bodies.

As I was diving into all the books I got my hands on, I came to understand that my throat chakra may be unbalanced. This chakra, called in Sanskrit, Vishuddha Chakra, is located, yes, you guessed it, in the throat.

And where is the thyroid? Yes, in the throat. Interesting eh?!

 So that is where my real journey of the chakras began.

The throat chakra's main anatomical regions of the body it deals with is the thyroid, parathyroid, larynx, jaw, mouth, tongue and neck.

When your 5th Chakra is in a balanced state you may experience the following:

• Speak your truth with ease
• Are a good listener
• Communicate well with others and from a deeper level than the ego

Another really interesting tidbit is the throat chakra is the first of the upper 3 spiritual chakras.

Maybe more on the 5th chakra another day, but now back to my story.....

Now that I had a bit more understanding of the chakras and the way they work in the body, I felt that my thyroid issue could be connected with my inability to speak my truth and my soft voice.

One of the ways I discovered that really called to me to help balance my throat chakra was through chanting.

So that's what I did. I started chanting. 

I found a CD (no Spotify did not exist back then LOL) that I resonated with and every single time I was in the car, that's all I played. 

And that continued for about 9 months.

In the beginning I'd get a headache and my throat would get dry after a few minutes of chanting which I found quite interesting. 

So like anything else we want to learn about and get better at, I practiced....for a really long time.

I noticed my throat would get less dry, and I wouldn't get the headache after a few months. And with all the other healing modalities I was doing, I was able to get the GD in an inactive state without meds at that time.

So although chanting my seem weird or woo woo, it really isn't. It's about sound, vibration and frequency. It's about allowing yourself to get out of the way so your body can be attuned to a higher healing frequency.

And it may be healing.

It was for me. And I continue to chant to this day. I've shared some chanting a long time ago in some of my yoga classes. And who knows, maybe I will again one day. :) 

I can still chant every single word of the chants on the CD I had. And now that it's on Spotify, it's even easier to access lol.

Here is the CD that I used to help balance out my 5th chakra. There are so many out there, just like I wrote about yoga teachers in my last blog post, that you can definitely find one, or two or more, that you will resonate with.

Another thing that happened that was really cool was that I took a Yoga and Chanting workshop with Manorama (the creator of the CD) and Amy Ippoliti (a yoga teacher) at The Omega Institute around 2006. It was pretty awesome chanting with Manorama in person.

Another really cool thing that happened is I became a yoga teacher. Never in a million years would I have ever believed that I would be teaching in front of others or own a yoga studio.

There is something to this 'get of out of the way, trust life and just listen' thing.

So my friend, chanting is pretty amazing. And once you understand more of the science behind it, you may come to realize that it's not this woo woo thing that only yogis or certain religions do. It actually is a healing modality that can strengthen your voice and help you speak your truth.

And if you don't have an issue with speaking your truth, maybe this will entice you to chant, or at least understand how chanting OHM in class can be beneficial:

*Chanting AUM induces vibrations within the body which are synchronous with the natural vibrations of the cosmos, thus inducing oneness with the universe.

Ok, so maybe I just made it a little woo woo. 😂

 namaste,

gina

*From Potentials & Possibilities website