Clearly a big area this one! Fortunately Richard has found over time that understanding two relatively basic concepts, the nature of vibration and the chakra system allows a quick and simple way to understand what can otherwise seem like this complex area!
Relationship dynamics can be such a difficult area of our lives at times, trying to make sense of the myriad of apparently contradictory feelings of connection and disconnection, friction and harmony which can abound, often seemingly simultaneously! And trying to find the language to accurately explain and articulate this confusion can leave even the best communicators lost for words.
Here we examine the role of vibration and chakras.
Vibration – explained
Every phenomenon within the universe is made up of vibration – including of course you. Things that have a denser, slower vibration tend to be of a more solid nature – such as the body and objects we consider ‘solid’. Things that have a lighter, faster vibration tend to be less tangible, more etheric in nature – such as thoughts or the air.
As a human being therefore you have a range of vibrations all the way through from slower, more dense ones which create your tangible physiology, through to less tangible ones which create your emotions and thoughts.
We’ve all stood next to someone and instinctively realized that they give off a good vibration (‘vibe’) that may resonate with us and be attractive, or give off vibes that are less appealing, which generally we instinctively move away from.
Chakras – explained
Within the body we also have 7 distinct areas of very concentrated vibrations. These energy centres occur where there is an aggregation of nerves, a ‘nerve plexus’ within the physiology. The aggregation of nerves all coming together radiate and sense a lot of energy, and we call these centres chakras.
Key Point:
What’s essential to realize is that chakras are not some intangible etheric non-sense, they are each actually grounded within the body itself as they are related to a nerve plexus, and are essentially the electromagnetic radiance of that nerve plexus.
This is where the relationship to each chakra having a colour and sound comes from – different frequencies of Electromagnetic energy relate to different colours and sounds. So each different centre, because it has a different vibrational frequency, has a different colour and sound associated to it.
These energy centres ‘chakras’ on the body, span a spectrum of vibrational frequencies and relate to the broad spectrum of our human faculties, from our physical body through to our thoughts and feelings. They are our way of being able to feel, interpret and radiate our experience as a human being.
How We Experience and Recognise Vibration in the Body-mind
The best way to recognize the importance and tangible effect of vibration on our being is through using music as an example. Music is a quite tangible manifestation of vibrations that we can quite readily relate to. Going back to basics, the sounds have particular vibrations which emanate from the instruments or speakers and impact the surrounding matter, in this case you.
So we can observe what happens when music impacts your body (you don’t just hear music through your ears, you actually listen to it and feel it with your whole body). Firstly you can recognize that certain types of music impact your body in different places – some music makes you feel like moving your hips, some music you may feel opens your Heart and puff your chest out, and some music with a high pitch can feel like it hits you straight between the eyes! If you dance you can also think of how different types of music moves you in different ways.
Secondly recognize how you feel when different types of music impact your body. Some music energises you like crazy – even the most sedentary lethargic person can be moved and exhilarated by particular music, whereas some music has the capacity to relax you to the point you can fall asleep. And some music has the ability to repel you, to make you contract and retreat.
So with the awareness that all phenomena we experience in life is actually comprised of vibration, in reality it also means that everything that we engage with actually similarly affects and influences our body. And of course other people give off vibrations!
Key Point
On one level there is no distinction here between how the vibration of inanimate and animate objects can affect us, you can walk in an empty room and feel uncomfortable with the vibrations in there, just like you can feel uncomfortable standing next to another person, but for the purposes of this work we are obviously more focused on relationships with other people.
So just like with music, we feel other peoples vibration through our body – through our nerves – our chakras – and we can also experience that full spectrum of reactions. With some people we can experience a sense of being energised as their vibration hits our body, with others we may feel relaxed or a neutral response, or with others we may actually feel repelled by their vibration.
However, what’s key to remember here is that we all also of course radiate vibrations from ourselves, which people can similarly react to, and that each relationship dynamic with each person you meet is completely unique, as no two people have the same subtle vibrations. You could have 100 people stand in front of you and each would experience your presence in a slightly different way depending on what happens when the two energy fields (your and their vibrations) interact.
This is how we have particular feelings evoked when in relation to another person, the ‘chemistry’ and the alchemy of what happens when two unique energy fields engage
This is the beauty (and sometimes the heartache!) of relating, that when we engage with another person both people become more than their individual selves and a third dynamic is born, that which is created when you meet.
Sometimes we also absorb vibrations from other people into our chakras and body tissues, which is why we can still feel the presence of the person still with us after they may no longer be in close physically proximity. Literally other people do ‘rub off ‘on us.
Similarly the sentiment we often express when someone irritates us, that they are ‘getting on our nerves’ is actually a totally accurate appraisal of the situation, since it is actually your nerves that are getting irritated by that other!
Your Role
While it’s true that each relationship dynamic is unique, it’s also wise to consider what you may be radiating and how it’s influencing the situation.
Lets revisit our situation where we have 100 people standing in front of you. While we identified that each person you might experience you in a slightly different way, it can
still have a similar ‘theme’. If you are predominantly radiating negativity and overall discordance, this will still be the underlying expression even if it comes across and is interpreted differently by each person. Just like bad, out of tune music will still sound like bad, out of tune music to most who hear it!
Similarly if you are radiating beautiful harmonious vibrations, it will still be the underlying energy, which makes contact with the other person, even if the interaction of the two energy fields and the person’s own ‘filter’ can skew it somewhat.
So it’s always useful to keep your vibration in good order – to stay ‘in tune’ – by having a good range of therapeutic practices in your life. Yoga and therapies are a wonderful way to alleviate stress out of the organs, but it’s also equally as important to be doing what you love and are passionate about in your life as much as possible. When you do what you love, it increases the radiance of your subtle Heart energy (vibration) that has the duel impact of positively benefitting the other organs in your body, but is also very attractive to others to be around! Increasing your self-awareness is also key – meditation is excellent for this – so you can also be aware when you are falling out of balance and take corrective actions. And above all else, trust your instincts, as the deeper intelligence of your body knows what it needs to reach out to.
Close Relationships
Having identified that each person is radiating a particular set of vibrations which can illicit a range of responses we can know delve a little deeper into the specifics of the dynamics you may experience with another person.
In essence there are a myriad of combinations of chakra resonance or discordance that can happen in relationship with another person, since we are dealing with the dynamics of 7 different centres that are all significantly engaged and triggered in the intimacy of relationship.
With each person you engage with, for each chakra, it can respond across the entire spectrum: It may be energized or excited, sit in a neutral or harmonious resonance, or be agitated (abraded) with. Friction or irritation as we often call it. This is why with any one person we can experience – often simultaneously – a sense of potential excitation and irritation! It all exists within the energy field between you and the other person at the same moment, and what comes to the surface can depend on which chakras are being triggered most or are in the ‘energetic ascendency’ at any one time.
So how well we get along with someone very much depends on how many of your chakras are in harmony with them. If only 1 or 2 chakras are in harmony, then about 20% of the time you’ll get on well, but the vast majority of the time you’re not going to get along. If roughly half your chakras aligned with the other person, roughly half the time you’ll get along well, and if most of your chakras are in harmony then indeed most of the time you are going to get along well!
Lets look at some more specific examples. You might experience around someone a great degree of excitation in the first and second chakra which means there would be a lot of sexual desire, but at the same time you might have an abrasion at the 6th Chakra (the 3rd eye) which means that you might see the world very differently and have conflict around it. So when you would be a in a sexual dynamic with your partner, and those chakras are in the ascendency, then you may feel very connected. But whilst debating life perspectives you may feel the connection becomes conflicted.
Or for example, you may have your Heart chakra in a state of excitation, so when you see each other you feel lots of Love and warmth, but if the throat chakra doesn’t resonate you might struggle to communicate and have fluid conversation.
Chakra Qualities
It’s useful at this point to give a brief overview of general chakra qualities and how they manifest in relationships so you can consider which chakras may have been strongly stimulated within particular relationships you have had.
Note: The qualities below relate to when a chakra is positively stimulated. If there is a neutral response in the relationship you won’t feel much different than you usually do, or if they are actually agitated or abraded with you would actually feel that aspect of you close, contract, be irritated, repelled or come into conflict.
Base Chakra–Sense of feeling secure in your body, and flowing in sexual expression
Sacral Chakra – Sense of feeling physically connected and intimately relaxed and close
Solar Plexus Chakra – Sense of being able to express yourself, be respected and have equal and appropriate use of power in the relationship
Heart Chakra – Sense of Love and compassion
Throat chakra – Sense of ability to communicate fluidly and truthfully
Third eye chakra – Sense of accurate perception and intuition with each other
Crown chakra – Sense of connection to the greater whole
Exercise – Relationship Reflections
An exercise I’ve often suggested to my patients is to look at which chakras are mainly triggered in particular relationships.
Seeing relationship dynamics through this light can help to stop us from falling into judgment around our relationships, as there isn’t really a right and wrong of relationships dynamics, just the dance of what actually gets triggered between you.
It can also help the mind to relax a little bit, as the mind always likes clear black and white opinion on what a relationship ‘should’ look like, and what category a particular relationship falls into.
For example, the mind likes to categorise that someone is either a boyfriend or girlfriend and has a relatively fixed set of ideas of how that should be, or the mind likes to think the person is just a friend, again with a set of ideas of how that should be. But as we are identifying, in reality, there are actually so many different permutations that can be going on within a relationship dynamic, so there are many shades of grey!
I’ve drawn out a few of the key chakra characteristics, resonances and abrasions from a couple of people I’ve had particularly close relationships with. Lets call the first person Charlotte. The 1st chakra felt very slightly activated, so there was a moderate degree of sexual charge, but the 2nd chakra felt strongly activated so I felt very at home and comfortable with this person. There was a strong competitive dynamic between us meaning that the 3rd chakra was slightly abrasive against one another. The 4th (Heart) centre resonated well, feelings of genuine non-conditional Love, as did the 5th centre, so communication was easy, and I would also say there was a strong spiritual correlation in the higher centres, that we felt on the same wavelength, attuned to similar subtle vibrations of energy.
Whereas when I’m engaging with ‘Liz’ I felt a huge amount of sexual charge, meaning the base chakra was very stimulated, but I wouldn’t actually feel so comfortable just hanging out with this person, the sense of comfort in my belly wasn’t great, so the second chakra was off resonance. Indeed, I’d often find my legs tightening up when I was with them as I felt off centre in their presence, and my legs were trying to grip onto the Earth to provide a sense of security. There was no competitiveness – so ease at the 3rd chakra, but there was a very strongly activated 4th (Heart) centre with huge feelings of Love towards her. With Liz there was also a tremendous ease of communication, so the 5th Chakra was strongly resonant, and interestingly when I communicated with them I actually felt my head and neck craning back slightly as if to open my throat and allow out the words I’d be longing to speak from the deeper levels of my being, from my Heart. And there was also a strong sense of Spiritual correlation from the higher centres as well.
So as we can see there is often a number of different forces at work within any one dynamic with another person, I’d hasten to add that the two pictures above both sound fairly good – of course they were which is why I chose to get close to these ladies as there was a lot of resonance, as we usually tend to pursue the relationships with more resonance! There are also plenty of examples I could also give of connections with people which had much more discordance, but I’d generally assess these dynamics pretty quickly, realize there was very little common ground and so less attraction to explore.
Sometimes the only common ground we may have with another person is that we share a common field of consciousness – as in we may work in the same setting as someone – so we share that perceptual context (3rd eye resonance of sharing a common perspective) but little else outside of that context. Or sometimes we know people who seem to irritate us on virtually every level!
It can also help us understand our impact on people we are close to, and how we may affect them when we work out which of our energy centres are particularly charged.
Feel Through All Your Senses
We may not be used to perceiving our relationships with others in this subtle light, for a number of reasons. Sometimes it’s because we’ve not been introduced to this area of chakra dynamics, so we haven’t had a ‘framework’ in which to reference, explore or consciously make sense of our experiences.
Other times it can also be because our subtle ‘energy body’ has hardened up, become dense or closed and we experience life in a grosser sensory reality where subtle energetics may not be detectable to the conscious mind. In this respect again, Yoga, therapies, time in nature, all make you a bit more aware and are useful practices for building up your sensitivity.
It’s also useful to increase awareness of our relationships in this way, as a common trait we can also have is to visually judge people, particularly in opposite sex relationships, and give excessive precedence on what we see. While you can’t stop the mind making commentary on what you observe, the mistake would be in giving total emphasis and drawing conclusions from it about when, as we have discovered, this is such a small part of the overall experienced we have when we connect with someone.
If you reflect on your relationships and see particular patterns consistently coming to the fore it can also be an indicator of which of our own chakras are particularly inherently charged. This can also help us understand what qualities we are bringing to a relationship and impacting those we are close to.
Chakra Polarities
It’s also worth noting that while chakras do have similar qualities in both sexes, there are also subtle differences in how they express depending on gender. This phenomenon is because each chakra relating to each gender has the opposing polarity.
For example, the base chakra on the male gender is a positive, expressive centre, whereas for the female it’s a receptive centre. And continuing on, the sacral chakra on a female gender is a positive centre, whereas for a male it’s a receptive centre.
The opposition of polarities then continues all the way up to the crown – which has a shared positive polarity (since on that level we are all one)
This explains why the male gender can tend to see the world more so through the filter of their positively charged base chakra, and seek reception for that drive, whereas the female gender tend to see it more so through the filter of their positively charged Heart centre and seek reception for that. Appreciating this, we can then also understand the different vantage points of each gender instead of thinking they should see things our way!
The Perfect Relationship?
Exercises like the above are also useful to try and snap us out of our ideas surrounding the ‘perfect relationship’. If you contemplate that you are receiving input from all 7 chakras simultaneously some of which may resonate and some which may be abrasive to you – then it stands a good chance that the possibility of meeting someone where all 7 energy centres resonate perfectly with our own, all the time, is fairly limited!