Do you ever get so laser focused on something that the physical world around you seems to disappear? Almost to a point of fixation, causing you to lack direction and feel disconnected in other areas of you life? That, beautiful soul, would be your sign to check if you have a blocked third eye chakra.
Let’s go through the energetic qualities of the third eye and what those third eye chakra blocked symptoms look like.
Understanding the Third Eye Chakra
Ajna chakra (third eye chakra) is your place of inner wisdom, inner guidance, and inner vision. This is the first of the transpersonal chakras, meaning it leads to spiritual awakening and is about connecting with something greater than yourself. It’s about seeing the bigger picture, bigger than the drama that is your life right now, and getting you out of the trance that is your daily life.
Working with the third eye chakra has the ability to change your life. How? Because this chakra is the command center of perception. The way you perceive your world internally, your thoughts and beliefs, is what shapes your outer world.
If you’re looking to really work with all that ajna chakra has to offer, my third eye chakra course is an amazing resource to go deeper with this energy.
Let’s do a quick review of this chakra before going any deeper.
Ajna (pronounced ag-nya) means “command center” ⌨️
Element: light 🔦
Color: indigo or royal blue. This is the color of night 🌌
Location: between and just above eyebrows and back a little bit 🧠. Some say the seat of this chakra is the pituitary gland but according to Anodea Judith(one of my mentors and amazing guest experts in 300-hour teacher training) the third eye chakra is associated with the pineal gland.
Purpose of the third eye chakra: insight and inner vision.
Demon of the third eye chakra: “illusion”
Physically
Your sixth chakra connects to the pineal gland. The pineal gland measures your exposure to light and dark to determine melatonin distribution throughout the body. Literally determining if your physical eyes should be open to the world around you or closed and sleeping(circadian rhythms). Similar to the way the third eye chakra is all about your perception of the world around you, measuring beliefs and different perspectives to determine how open or closed off you are.
Isn’t it amazing the correlations between the subtle energy body and the physical body? I mean, 🤯.
Emotionally
To understand the emotional life of ajna chakra, let’s look at how brain chemistry works.
You’ve got a lot of thoughts going through your brain each day. It has been suggested that 80 percent of all thoughts are negative. What?! But why? This is because of negativity bias. Meaning that your brain has a tendency to focus on the negative things happening over the positive. You’ll see in this article that Rick Hanson explains how negative interactions are 5x more powerful than positive. You could have 100 e-mails singing your praises but one critical one and it makes you question all your life choices. You’ve now disillusioned yourself because of this one bad review.
But here’s the thing, you’ve got 100 other emails telling you a different story. Your third eye chakra asks you to zoom out and look at the big picture. To really examine your beliefs and see if they are true. In this case, when you zoom out, you’ll see that this one bad review does not make you a bad yoga teacher like you may have thought, you’ve got 100 other pieces of evidence to say otherwise.
Your beliefs affect your reality. But, all beliefs are arbitrary. You can rewrite the story. There are useful beliefs, ones that benefit you, and limiting beliefs, ones that aren’t serving you, and these beliefs have a ton of charge. They direct what you download and what you see, your focal point.
Your third eye chakra challenges you to constantly re-examine your beliefs to CHOOSE your focus. You can either focus on the negative beliefs and thought patterns(which is going to take you down a road of stress and anxiety) or you can choose to focus on the positive and live more aligned.
Spiritually
The third eye chakra is your space of self awareness.
Having self awareness is the ability to look back through what’s happening in the other chakras, connect your beliefs and your patterns and be able to separate from those beliefs. To look at things with neutrality and from a space of love.
This self awareness then leads you to spiritual awareness and spiritual growth. It leads you to the desire to connect with Source energy(God/Spirit/whichever denomination you prefer) at that crown chakra. It takes you out of the illusions of modern life, all the things trying to steal your focus, to bring your focus to the space of divinity.
Intuition
Now, it wouldn’t be a third eye chakra talk without mentioning your sixth sense because this is also the “command center” of your intuition.
Anodea Judith has the perfect analogy for intuition. She says, intuition is like a match in a dark room. It gives you a glimpse into what is in the room but then the match goes out and it’s dark and you have to figure out where to go from there. Your intuition is like the match giving you a quick insight into where to go or what direction to move and then it’s up to you to figure out the rest.
“But Brett, you talk about intuition with all the chakras. What makes this one the command center?”
You can’t listen to your inner voice or trust your intuition when your third eye chakra is blocked. When you’re narrow minded or you’ve got tunnel vision you close off to all other things, blocking out those intuitive alerts. Your third eye chakra is the place where you take a step back to look at things as whole and receive new information. It is when you are open like this that you can truly embrace your inner guidance and intuitive urges.
Take my chakra quiz to find your dominant chakra:
Third Eye Chakra Blockage Symptoms
In order to do the work that’s available to you in sixth chakra you need to have a nice harvested charge through the lower five chakras.
Why? Because all seven chakras are a system and, again, you should work with them as such. For example, let’s say you have this perception of your current situation that “you can’t afford anything”. This is clearly a root chakra (muladhara) blockage. But you’re telling yourself this story of financial hardship and now you have a BELIEF. Your brain is going to make sure it finds evidence to make this true and all you can then focus on is your financial struggles and not see the abundance surrounding you. Now you’ve created a third eye blockage based on your root blockage. See how that works? Each chakra imbalance can lead you to a limiting belief that can result in a blocked third eye chakra.
Work to align all seven chakras with this class:
If you’ve been following this series you are fully aware that there can be physical symptoms, emotional symptoms, and behavioral symptoms of a blocked third eye chakra. So let’s see how third eye chakra blocked symptoms can manifest:
Physical Symptoms Of Blocked Third Eye Chakra
If Excessive
- Headaches
- Hallucinations
- Insomnia
If Deficient
- Poor vision
- Poor memory
- Sinus problems
Emotional Symptoms Of Blocked Third Eye Chakra
If Excessive
- Delusion
- Paranoia
- Scatterbrained
If Deficient
- Closed minded
- Depression/anxiety
- Constantly stuck in your head
Behavioral Symptoms Of Blocked Third Eye Chakra
If Excessive
- Obsessive
- Unrealistic goals
- Constantly preoccupied
If Deficient
- Fixation: Inability to entertain other thoughts/ideas out of current belief system
- Lack of direction/unable to focus
- Inability to connect with others
Take my chakra quiz to find your dominant chakra:
Third Eye Chakra Healing Techniques
Anodea Judith has this phrase, “That’s not true for everybody”, when someone comes to her with a strict belief. Something like “You have to work hard to be successful”. That used to be my strict belief, and because I believed it so strongly that was my reality.
That belief is an illusion, because in truth, that’s not true for everybody. If I said “You have to work smart to be successful” instead of “You have to work hard” that’s going to shape my reality differently. Instead of working myself to a point of burnout I’ll probably work more on making sure I have an effective team or self generating systems in place so that I’m not exhausting myself.
This simple phrase, “That’s not true for everybody”, profoundly shifts your perception of yourself and the world around you. Once you’ve identified those limiting beliefs, this powerful tool is a great first step to healing this blocked energy center.
Other healing techniques:
Yoga Asanas
Yoga helps you move from a place of not being focused to a place of realizing you are not your thoughts. This is why asana is great for creating balance.
Pro Tip: you can use a block in a plethora of poses to activate ajna chakra. Just place the block under your forehead to put pressure on that third eye center(this helps with headaches too 😉).
Note: Intuitive movement is a great way to connect with the third eye chakra too.
Yoga poses for balancing ajna chakra energy center:
- Dolphin pose
- Child’s pose
- Forward fold
- Downward facing dog
Give this sequence a try!!:
Pranayama (Breathwork)
Alternate nostril breathing (Nadi Shodhana) will balance both sides of the brain and energy body, making it the perfect pranayama technique for blocked third eye chakra. It brings the rational and the intuitive into harmony.
There are plenty of breathing techniques to choose from though. Try some of these calming breathing techniques to get started.
Affirmations
It might feel silly, but affirmations really do work! Here are five of my favorite affirmations for this energy center.
- I re-discover my spiritual truth every day
- I trust my intuition to reveal the path I’m meant to walk in life
- I see beyond what is apparent to what is really there
- I embrace wisdom as a bridge to my higher self
- I believe that healing is my true path, and not a detour from it
Here are even more third eye chakra affirmations.
Visualization & Meditation
What’s the best way to start examining your beliefs? How can you command your mind?
Consistent training and focus. – meditation helps a lot here. CHOOSE the meanings you want to create. Redirect your mind. Tell your mind to do something different. Focus on the positive and build new neural pathways. Where your focus goes, energy flows.
Work on seeing the big picture of things. How do you bring the bigger picture into your life? Interconnectedness, stop living in duality and come to neutrality. I have a great visualization practice using the third eye chakra symbol here.
Try this wonderful FREE third eye chakra meditation:
Energy Healing
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times. Intuitive movement is one of the most healing things you can do. Try dancing or some somatic exercises. You can give this intuitive movement yoga class a try too.
JOURNAL! Just do a thought download in your journal, writing down whatever comes to mind. Then take a look at the things you’ve written and ask yourself what of those things is actually true?
It’s always a good idea to work with a professional energy healer too. Someone who has a deeper spiritual practice and understanding on how exactly to assess these energy centers.
Even adding healing crystals or sound healing to your practice helps!
Third eye chakra stones to cultivate balance include:
- Labradorite – strengthens intuition and psychic abilities
- Fluorite – promotes balance, harmony, & intuition
- Lapis Lazuli – inner knowledge and truth
- Apatite – brings inspiration and good energy
Add a little something extra with essential oils too. Clary Sage is a good option for that brow chakra .
Prevention and Maintenance
Soak in good experiences when they happen. Bath in the sun and enjoy the feeling, soak up the hugs of your loved one and imagine the positive outcomes you desire. These are great steps to keeping a healthy third eye chakra.
My Favorite Method For Third Eye Chakra Health:
Balance is seeing what is, seeing reality, and breaking down your beliefs can be tricky business. But not if you have the right framework. This method from the book Loving What Is by Byron Katie called “The Work” explains how to break down your beliefs. I absolutely love this framework. It’s like creative problem solving!
“The Work”:
Start with your belief, something you’ve been thinking a lot about lately.
Belief: “My husband never cleans up”.
- Is it true? – This is a meditation. Get super clear on this thought. Set the scene like watching a movie.
e.g. I just finished dinner with my husband and he gets up to go watch TV leaving everything on the table. Then I’m cleaning up from dinner while he relaxes.
Meditate on it and paint a vivid picture before you ask this question.
If yes move to question 2, if no move to question 3. - Can you absolutely know that it’s true? – meditate on it again to be completely sure of your answer. You can’t move through this quickly. Saturate into the scene.
In this case, no it isn’t true. He cleans up the garage and other areas. It’s not that he never cleans, it’s that he doesn’t clean the areas I’m wanting him to. - How do you react, what happens, when you have that thought? – what does this belief do inside of you and is it serving you or limiting you? How do you treat yourself or others when you think this?
With this example it makes me resentful towards my husband and angry with myself. Then I’m no longer in my highest vibration. - Who would you be without the thought? – put yourself back to the moment when the thought occurs. That same scene from question 1. Now think of that moment without the thought, how would you feel? Would you be calmer?
I might be more excited to finish the cleaning so I can relax with my husband. Or enjoy the calming sensation of the running water while washing the dishes. - Turn it around – change the thought around. From “my husband never cleans” to “my husband does clean” or “I never let my husband clean”. And then is this equally true? YES!
This brings us into the non dual state of higher consciousness and spiritual awareness of interconnectedness. Then this negative belief is not as strongly charged.
To do this work and really reach a place of equanimity within this energy center you will have to do it one belief at a time and this is the perfect framework to guide you.
Final Thoughts
Seeing things clearly requires a calm mind. In order to calm the mind you have to be able to focus and command your attention. And in this modern world everything is trying to take your attention away, commanding your own attention, a heroic feat. But, when you do command your attention and still the mind you can focus like a laser beam on anything you want and create it.
As you continue to pierce the illusion of separateness and difference, you’ll find kindness, love and interconnectedness. All the things your beautiful soul deserves.
Next Steps:
- Explore my Chakras knowledge hub to learn more about the Chakras from the blog.
- Check out my YouTube channel and find some yoga classes that you can try out for yourself!
- Join Uplifted for exclusive chakra content that you can access right from the app. Take a deep dive into your practice with me this year!
FREE Chakra Balancing Audio Track + Journaling Prompts
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