Throat chakra healing

This beautiful painting is by the artist, Rakia. She titled it "Open and Flow" and it refers to the throat chakra. That chakra is located in the center of the neck. In Eastern traditions, the throat chakra is associated with expression, creativity and speaking one's  truth. 

I am going through tremendous healing in my throat chakra right now. I have had healing spurts at different times in my life relating to opening up my throat chakra.

As a child, I used to have a recurring nightmare in which I was choking and could not breathe. It was not until my 20s that I finally dreamt about unblocking what was in my throat. In that dream, it started off as the usual nightmare in which I'm choking and clutching at my throat. When, to my horror, I started coughing up and vomiting all sorts of things like black spiders, crabs and slippery eels. It was disgusting. And then the dream ended abruptly. I easily interpreted it to be about me speaking my truth as a young lesbian and my activism. Little did I know that this cleaning out of my throat chakra blockages would take many years, decades even. But that was a good start. I've had other growth spurts, but none other so dramatic as the one I had this year with my cervical spinal decompression surgery.

This unflattering picture (what I do for a blog posts!) shows the trauma I've been enduring around my throat chakra. It culminated in the last several months. My cervical vertebrae were so damaged that they had compressed my spinal cord to the point of spinal damage. I had to have an urgent surgery in which they completely removed my C4 and replaced it with titanium, and then also had two cervical fusions.The surgeon went through the front of my throat to reach my vertebrae. The scar lies directly over my throat chakra! Poor baby.

Now, I am not saying that my spinal compression in my neck is due solely to not being able to express myself, but I do believe chronic trauma to energy centers in our body can contribute to illness in those areas. I believe my throat chakra has been blocked due to years of verbal abuse, constant criticism and silencing. I do not tolerate any of that in my life anymore.

I am using daily visualizations to gently wash away psychic debris throughout my whole body, but especially in my throat and neck area. And I am taking concrete steps to speak my truths and express myself.

Some of the healing involves speaking my truth when it's uncomfortable. This morning I broke through my fear of rejection to let a couple people I love dearly know how they had hurt me this past week. I was very afraid of their potential reactions but I felt I needed to say something. It was an overall positive step in my relationship with them. I hope they feel similarly. And while some parts of it were hard, I feel good about how it was left. 

I don't expect I'll ever reach a day when I have nothing to work on in myself. But it's such a good feeling to continue to grow and evolve in ways that leave me and my community more at peace.