Emotional pain in chakra meditation
June 16, 2008
I am responding to a question from a listener who experienced emotional pain while using the Chakra Meditation. Here is his email:
I was today listening to the Chakra meditation podcast, but felt it was necesarry to turn it off at the Heart Chakra. I found that I became overwhelmed by a feeling of great emotional pain in my heart… I thought I would e-mail you to see if you knew what might be causing this, and how to find the solution.
It’s not unusual to become more aware of our emotions during meditation, and even to have strong emotions or emotional pain come up. I will write about that in general in another post (or talk about it in another podcast), but for now I’ll talk specifically about having this happen during the Chakra Meditation.
During the chakra meditation, we put our attention on the various chakras. The chakras, or energy centers of the body, are like doorways to different aspects of ourselves. They process the energy for our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual functioning. When we put our attention on a chakra, we become more aware of what is going on in the part of our life that the chakra represents. Not only do we become more aware, but the energy in the chakra is enlivened by our attention.
Our attention is a beam of energy and intelligence and, like a laser beam, it affects whatever it is directed toward. With your awareness on your heart chakra, you may get in touch with something going on in your heart area. It’s like shining a light into a dark room — what has been hidden becomes revealed.
In this case, you felt great emotional pain. This could be pain associated with something going on in your life now that you’ve been ignoring, or it could be some pain “releasing” from the past. The heart chakra has to do with our relationships and connections with others. If there has been some loss or hurt in relationships, it is felt in the heart area. The loss or hurt could even be associated with things and events, such as moving or losing a job. If the feeling of hurt (or perhaps grief) isn’t fully “processed”, the energy of the feeling gets “stuck” in the heart chakra. When we put our attention on the heart chakra, we may feel what is waiting there to be processed. It’s the job of the heart chakra to process certain emotions, and when we relax in meditation and allow our attention to go there, the heart chakra gains the energy to do its job. While no one likes to experience emotional pain, it is a part of healing and recovering from an emotional trauma.
Very often we have grief that hasn’t been fully resolved in our lives. Some cultures are better than others in supporting people through grief. In many of our Western cultures, we’ve learned to suppress grief. But our mind and body will always move toward greater balance and emotional well-being given the opportunity. While meditating, things that have been under the surface can come up to be felt.
When something comes up that makes you feel too uncomfortable, you can always do what you did and stop the meditation. It would be good if that happens to lie down and rest a bit to let things settle down. There are some other ways of dealing with strong emotions as well, and for something like this an experienced meditation guide could help. The advice the guide would give would depend on some one-on-one exchange with you.
After responding to the person who asked this question, he emailed back that indeed he had recently experienced a sort of emotional trauma and had been feeling quite numb until listening to the meditation. Based on that, I also want to add that it is quite normal to feel numb after a traumatic event like the death of a loved one, breakup of a relationship and any other intense loss or change. It’s a healthy response of the body and psyche to protect itself from overload and allow us to continue functioning. Usually that phase passes and we begin to feel our emotional reactions. Sometimes, however, those reactions are buried and may surface again after a long period of time. It’s not always possible to know where a strong emotion in meditation is coming from — it could be an emotion from a recent event or left over from something long ago. In any case, part of healing is experiencing that emotion and meditation can sometimes facilitate that.
Usually an emotional release will in meditation will not take too long to resolve and won’t cause undue discomfort. Occasionally, however, meditation can open us up to some feelings that are so difficult for us that we would benefit from help from a trained counselor or therapist. Be kind to yourself and get support if needed.
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14 Responses to “Emotional pain in chakra meditation”
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The answer to the above questionis very enlightening
When I was suffering I felt this ball of energy, a dome, like a sun over my heart chakra. (I was trying to be very present and not hide or repress my pain.) It grew larger for a few days and the pain seemed to be converted to energy. I felt like I was walking around with a huge sun on my chest. Slowly it has shrunk down to fit in my chest.
Can you comment on this and my experience?
Hi Tama,
It is obvious from this comment and your comments elsewhere that you are very aware of what is going on with your energy. People experience and describe subtle energies in many different ways. We do feel suffering in our heart chakra, and when the heart chakra is busy processing some emotions, there is a lot of energy there. You perceived is as a ball or sun.
Pain is the way we interpret a movement of energy. As you stayed with the pain, letting go of attempts to repress it or resist it, you began to feel it simply as energy. Energy always moves, the energy of emotion comes up, intensifies and then dissolves. Left to go it’s own way without your interference, the energy in the heart gradually decreased. You could say that you allowed the heart to process what it needed to process so that the painful energy could resolve.
This is very fortunate. Had you repressed the pain, it would have become “stuck”. That would have caused you more suffering in the long run than to simply be completely in the pain when it arose.
I did a meditation today to open my chakras as suggested by a close friend of mine. I have always described myself as being more of a “logical” person, less emotional then most people. Today, however, hours after doing the meditation began to feel a bit sad and sentimental (even crying a little) about things that I thought were long forgotten. I laughed a bit when describing how I was feeling to my friend, as the only way I could describe it was as being possibly the way the Grinch felt when his heart grew 2 sizes larger (or however many sizes larger). Ha, this is funny but I feel like I have fluttering butterflys in my heart, or wierder, that I actually feel my heart as if it’s the first time, yikes! I am feeling a bit uncomfortable with the sensation of wanting to both cry and laugh at the same time and wondering if it will pass…
…wanted to add that you mentioned that it is okay to stop the meditation if the pain is too uncomfortable. How do I shut it off if I am still experiencing the pain AFTER the meditation?
Hi Jennifer,
It sounds like your meditation created some opening in your heart chakra releasing a lot of feeling that has been “stored”. (No one really understands the mechanics of this, but emotions from past events seem to remain with us if they have not been fully processed in the past.) Your fluttering butterflies feeling is a reflection of the energies of the heart chakra being enlivened and going to work. You can tune in and see for yourself, but it sounds like there may be a mixture of joy as the heart opens up (laughing) and sadness as what has been held is released (crying). As to whether it will pass, probably even by now it’s settled down a bit and you will become accustomed to and integrate this experience.
As for shutting the experience of the pain off after meditation. It will fade on its own over time if you just let it be there and don’t fight it. Get some extra rest and be easy with yourself.
Although you are uncomfortable with it, this is potentially an important opening for you. Perhaps you will discover that you have more emotions than you thought. If you want to continue this opening and find it too uncomfortable, you may want to seek some sort of support with it.
I do not know what is happening to me. During the first meditation stages I felt something huge that accumulates in my chest and I was scared because it was strange like a pain is released but in huge quantities and also make me feel like I release fear, anger and it’s decreasing gradually every day. But I accepted these feelings of fear because I am used to it and always sit in meditation for at least 1 hour in a day. Also when I felt that pain in my chest it somehow made me breathe harder like I was pressed by a rock. This is not a joke, my father threatened me like a garbage until I made 21 years, like I wasn’t his own son, he threatened me like I was his property, he made me feel depressed because he likes to tease me and he says that I am stupid and moron, but now that I discovered what meditation is I feel that I can forgive him for what he has done to me…MEDITATION IS THE WAY TO BE STRONGER, TO FEEL PEACE AND HARMONY WITH YOUR SOUL.
Hello George,
You are really courageous in allowing these emotions to be felt and released through your meditation. I do think part of forgiveness is being able to feel the hurt another person has “caused” you all the way. It’s remarkable that you are arriving at this place of forgiving your father.
An hour of meditation is a long time. It sounds like you are happy with this practice, but if you ever want to make the experience less intense, you could meditate for less time.
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience!
I experienced something crazy last night. I’ve been doing chakra meditations everyday and I had a huge realization last night and out of nowhere began crying out of both joy and sadness. When my mother was little she was molested by a pastor. For years she completely forgot it ever happened. During her mid years the energy surfaced and she suffered greatly. What I didn’t realize is that I suffered with her. I share a strong connection with my mom, unlike that of my two brothers and father. While she was working through the pain, her emotions would go up and down. Sometimes she’d be happy as could be and sometimes she’d yell and treat me and my brothers poorly - I didn’t know what I had done to deserve her treatment. And until last night I didn’t even know how much it hurt me. I realized what that man did to her he did to me also through her. Today I feel very strange, a kind of sadness and joy. But it’s not so much in my chest as in my second creative/sexual chakra. I love my mom with all my heart and have forgiven her completely. But she hasn’t forgiven the pastor. I wonder if her energy is effecting me still. I realized I must communicate with and thank her for how she treated me for I believe it was a gift. My awakening has been so powerful that I can’t help but feel grateful, because now I can change enough to help her let that experience go.
What a revelation, Jake! It’s becoming more and more clear to me that we carry the emotional and psychological effects not only of what has happened to us, but of what has happened to our parents. My sense is that we inherit the history of our ancestors in our cellular memory as well. Sounds like you and your mother are very close and you are very empathic and so it’s not surprising that you would share the energetic patterns which resulted from her trauma.
Any sexual abuse is registered in the second chakra as well as the heart and other chakras, so it makes sense you are feeling it there.
When we shift energetically and heal emotionally, it brings those close to us along with us. We are not separate. We are all inter-connected — one big human organism!
Wishing you all the best…
Last night I did the chakra meditation for the first time, and experienced a lot of emotional pain when I got to the fifth chakra. What does this represent?
Hi Katrina,
Ultimately, you’ll need to check in with yourself to see what it represents, but perhaps I can say a few things that will help you do that.
I suggest you do some reading about the fifth chakra and see if any of the “meanings” of the fifth chakra give you some insight into the pain. Briefly, the fifth, or throat, chakra is generally associated with communication, creativity, expressing our truth, speech.
I feel it also has to do with emotional expression. Because of that, it’s possible that the emotional pain coming up at the throat chakra is something that wants to be expressed. One example would be unexpressed grief. There also could be something that you need to express to someone or even artistically that is blocked. Pain is felt at the chakra when the energy hits upon a block and the blocked energy gets activated.
oops. i meant what does this CHAKRA represent. hooray for typos. Thank you for the information.
I have been working on clearing my chakras, and my throat seems to keep getting blocked…after doing chakra meditations the past week, I will all of a sudden become overwhelmed and need to cry to get the emotional pain out…is this my throat chakra clearing out?
It does sound like your throat chakra clearing, Jill, but also it would involve other chakras as well.
Part of the function of the throat chakra is communication, expression, speech. When we “choke back our tears” we are suppressing the throat chakra. I would say your throat chakra is opening up and this is allowing the energy to move through it. But there is probably clearing in other chakras, such as the solar plexus and heart, which is opening up this flow of emotional energy.