Chakra Healing: How to Open Your Ajna Chakra

Trust your intuition by opening the third eye chakra.

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Are you having trouble making important decisions? Do you feel disconnected from your intuition? Do you feel too strongly attached to external things like money, relationships, food, or status? Do you find it difficult to keep an open mind?

If so, these signs indicate that your third eye chakra needs to open and balance. Healing exercises help activate the third eye chakra to restore the ability to follow your intuition, make good decisions, and protect against harm.

What Is a Chakra?

According to the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, the chakras represent where the physical and spiritual meet. These seven swirling wheels of energy align along the spine. The sixth chakra, the third eye or Ajna chakra, sits in your “mind’s eye” in the space between the eyebrows.

Read more in the Complete Beginner’s Guide to the Seven Chakras.

In Sanskrit, the third eye chakra is called Ajna, meaning “beyond wisdom”. This Ajna chakra relates to how we connect the external world with our internal dialogue. It corresponds with your intuition and spiritual awareness. Some may think of it as the “sixth sense”, the ability to tune into primal instincts and the subtle signals of nature, just like animals can sense a storm or earthquake coming.

When in balance, a person feels calm, insightful, and self-aware. They may also experience psychic abilities such as clairvoyance, telepathy, lucid dreaming, expanded imagination, and visualization. 

When out of balance, someone has difficulty seeing the bigger picture and making decisions. They may have a “closed mind” and rigid opinions.

The Third Eye Chakra at a Glance

Name in Sanskrit: Ajna meaning “beyond wisdom”
Location: The space between the eyebrows
Color: Indigo
Element: All (earth, air, fire, water, and ether)
Signs of balance: Strong intuition and inner wisdom, the release of the ego
Signs of imbalance: Someone becomes cynical and overly attached to external circumstances. When out of balance, a person may also store tension in the head, causing headaches or vision problems.

Opening the Third Eye Chakra

Burn Ajna incense and essential oils. 

Aromatherapy has powerful healing properties to help ease the mind and awaken subtle psychic energies and feelings of intuition. To open the third eye chakra, burn essential oils, candles, or incense like bay laurel, palo santo, myrrh, Roman chamomile, nutmeg, sandalwood, and St. John’s Wort.

Repeat positive affirmations about intuition and awareness. 

The repetition of affirmations helps set intentions to break old patterns and create new ones. To open the third eye chakra, repeat affirmations that relate to intuition, awareness, and insight. Here are some examples:

  • I trust my intuition.
  • I feel connected to my spiritual truth.
  • I let me inner wisdom guide me.
  • My thoughts are calm and peaceful.

By repeating these statements, we create new thought patterns, behaviors, and actions that align with feelings of intuitions, making good decisions, and opening the third eye.

Practice postures that open the third eye chakra.

Yoga, which means union in Sanskrit, involves connecting the spiritual and physical of the body through postures, called asanas. Mindful breathing while holding asanas helps to release tension and activate the third eye chakra. Such poses include humble warrior, wide-legged forward bend, locust, camel, dolphin, and the oh-so-relaxing, child’s pose.

Reconnect with the Ajna Chakra

Meditation gives a chance to reconnect with the inner self and calm the constant flood of thoughts. You can practice mindful breathing during meditation to reconnect with the third eye chakra. Close the eyes in an upright crossed-legged position or laying on the back in savasana pose. Breathe in, breathe out, and come back to your true home.

Read more about chakra healing: Learn how you can open your root chakra, sacral chakra, solar plexus chakra, heart chakra, throat chakra, and crown chakra.

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