A Love Letter, To The Throat Chakra

The chakra system is something that we consistently find intertwined in to the metaphysical world of crystals. Aside from certain meditations/practices- crystals are one of the most accessible ways of activating and aligning your chakras.  The chakra system is so simple, yet when you really think about it, so inherently complicated.  Just like your physical systems in your body- everything needs to work cohesively and run efficiently in order for you to optimally function.  The same can be said for this etheric body system.  As with any other metaphysical concept, there is going to be some discrepancies between what is viewed as the "most important" or integral part.  Many consider the crown chakra most important because it connects you with your etheric, higher self, soul body, what have you.  Some think it is your third eye because when awakened it allows you to receive and process knowledge previously inconceivable to you.
I have a strange favorite- strange in the sense that I don't often see people referring to it as their "favorite."  The throat chakra.  Be it my personal belief systems, or my personal experiences that have led me to this conclusion...welcome to my love letter to the throat chakra.

Whether you consider the chakra system valid or invalid in your way of thinking, I think we can all agree that communication is an integral part of the human experience.  It's how we get what we want, express ourselves, help others and ourselves, obtain the basic needs for survival, obtain our not so necessary needs for survival- I can go on and on. Bottom line, communication is not only key but arguably essential.

While the idea of the chakras is that they are indeed interconnected and the health of one affects the health of all- I almost want to make the argument for saying without being able to be heard and communicate, would everything else be moot?
The importance of being heard and being able to speak your truth, however you find it as you go about your human experience, is more important now than ever I feel.
It seems so much is going on in this world now more than ever- and I realize how broad that statement is.  With the progression of science, technology, philosophies, ideologies- simply put with the passing of time, this is going to be inevitable.  We have come so far as human beings in our communication skills throughout the progression of time, and with more and more impacting the human experience- we all find our own little place in It. With that, we find ourselves creating our identities of who we are- those huge questions like "What do I associate myself/identify with? What do I believe in?  What do I reject?" to the even bigger questions like- "Who am I?"
How this gets developed is communication with ourself, and how we are received by others when we communicate who we are.
Communication is not reserved to strictly spoken word either.  (Perfect example- when someone perceives your body language) Your actions, what you bring to fruition, tangible things that you create- this is all forms of communication. My favorite example is art- great art is always meant to communicate something. So I ask you when considering the following, that you broaden the term of "communication" to encompass multiple ways of expression and not just stay reserved to spoken word.

As with any viewpoint, my personal experience has shaped my thoughts, leading to my surmised conclusion of what I view as "true."  I've always been drawn to create since I can remember- but as anyone who has a creative brain will tell you, you can spend quite some time being artistically blocked.  I come from an abundantly artistic family- and my interests have always been all over the place.  Jay has told me that my identity is extremely fluid in the sense that I don't heavily resonate with anything- but more-so I'm all over the place.  At first this like bothered me a bit- like almost making me think that I didn't have an identity of what makes me, me.  But after I sat with it for awhile, as long as I don't ignore what I enjoy and express myself in the ways I truly want to- I don't think it's a terrible thing to be fluid.  Regarding me being so all over the place though, I always felt like my creative ruts were due to me being pulled in so many different directions of how I want to use my creative energy- and this of course as with any overwhelming thing will, led to very few creative projects actually coming to fruition.  I wanted to paint.  I wanted to draw.  I wanted to make jewelry. I wanted to write.  I wanted to create music.  I wanted to make jewelry.  I wanted to sew.  The list goes on and on.  But I always attributed to nothing ever happening to my overactive brain, and multifaceted interests.  I would never spend enough time practicing something for long enough to feel confident in my abilities- and then this would lead to an even further procrastination of creative ventures.  Looking back, I feel like without my conscious knowledge this led to me eventually believing that I wasn't a creative person, just because I couldn't dedicate myself fully to a creative project.  Then college came, and as anyone who has attended college will tell you- if you have the intentions of being a good student, there is little time for anything BUT college.  So any sort of creative inklings that I had really took a back seat once I was working on my degrees.  Toward the end of my college career, I started having a hard time swallowing and my throat became very tight.  I was in college to become a teacher, and my last semester was spent student teaching- which is even more immersive and time consuming than standard college classes, if you can believe it.  So for quite some time, I ignored it- as well as ignoring the eventual fevers that came, the fatigue.  I stopped ignoring it once I could physically feel a lump when I pressed on my neck.  So I made an appointment with my general practitioner and told him "Hey, I feel like I have a lump in my throat all the time- feel this."  He didn't feel anything.  Instead of persisting and advocating for myself, I just said "Ok."  (My lack of communication was showing in a very real way here.) Sharing this with Jay later that day, he encouraged me to still push forward since I had physical symptoms.  So I called the doctor's office back and asked if there was anything further I could do in terms of testing or diagnostics.  The doctor kind of ignored me and essentially told me this was all in my head from stress, but eventually agreed to refer me to an ENT doctor.  I'm going to fast forward and just give you the cliff notes- so I went through some testing with this new doctor and it did indeed turn out that I had a growth on my thyroid.  What was interesting to me and I didn't really notice until after my surgery was that the doctor kept referring to my growth's main issue being that it was causing a blockage since it was right up against the duct system in my thyroid.  If you're at all familiar with the chakra system, often times when balancing/cleansing is in order- it's because there can be the presence of a "blockage" disrupting the flow of the chakra system.  So something was physically (and ethically) blocking my throat chakra area...
I remember being absolutely terrified of the surgery- but weirdly my main concerns weren't the recovery, pain- nothing like that.  I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to communicate.  I was so scared that I wouldn't be able to have control and communicate if I needed to while I was having the surgery, and when I woke up.
While recovering from my surgery, I started creating jewelry more heavily than I ever had before.  It passed the time, it was easy to manage- with all of my materials laid out with me on the couch, and I was finding pleasure in actually following through with this creative project.  Producing more jewelry pieces than ever before, Jay gave me the idea for starting to sell my jewelry since it was accumulating quickly.  This is actually how the initial idea for Ethereal Candy started. ☺️
Almost two years later, I was telling one of the stockists the story of how I started heavily creating again after my surgery, and words stuck with me as they just resonated so much truth, and continue to for me: "You can create something which comes from your sacral chakra if you're not able to express it in to reality with your throat chakra."  Boom.  It just hit too close to home that someone acknowledged that once I removed a blockage, it essentially enabled me to communicate and express on behalf of myself (my sacral chakra.)
To see the close interconnectedness of these two areas of my being, expressed in the chakra system- and that they could be so dependent on one another to both function properly.  I couldn't work with the creativity living in my sacral chakra if my throat chakra wasn't able to express.

Thinking more deeply in to this...
-You need to communicate that you are feeling un-grounded, and possibly need to talk out why you're having these feelings.  Which is work associated with your Root Chakra.
-Your solar plexus has to do with your identity and personal power- which you need communication in order to express your identity and power.
-Your heart chakra deals with (as expected) matters of love and compassion.  (Which I think we can all agree, requires communication.)
-Your third eye chakra, dealing with receiving and processing matters of intuition.  We often need to communicate with others in order to work through and understand this information that we are receiving.
-Your crown chakra connects you with all that is- mainly the collective.  I think we can all agree that the key to functioning and understanding as a collective centers around the ability to give and receive communication.

Now what can you do to keep your lines of communication open and activate your throat chakra.
The throat chakra is associated with the color blue- so even something as simple as integrating some color therapy with blue items in to your life can aid in helping you to express yourself and be heard.  Actively choosing to do things like wear blue, use blue crystals and so forth show intention- and as with so many things in life and thought, intention is EVERYTHING. (And also remember, that color holds vibrational energy as well- hence why certain colors are associated with certain chakras.)
Mainly, you can also access the energies of crystals associated with the throat chakra.  Some of my favorites to utilize for this purpose are: Sodalite (which also sometimes occurs with an orange inclusion of Cancrinite which orange is associated with the sacral chakra which is where you hold your creativity.) Amazonite, Lapis Lazuli, Celestite, Blue Aragonite, Blue Apatite, and Aquamarine are what I would consider the basic "go to's."
These crystals would be excellent for someone to use or carry with them if they are engaging in any form of public speaking (such as giving an oral presentation), if you feel like you are struggling to be heard, are having issues communicating in an effective way with someone, or if you're trying to teach or convey something.


My obvious affinity with the throat chakra and the idea of communication being so integral to our being doesn't mean that I don't recognize the importance of the other chakras- remember it is a SYSTEM and all needs to function together in order to be effective.  So whether or not you internalize the chakra system or not- its ideals of these different parts of ourselves working together as a system in order for us to function and feel at our very best is a nice idea to have when considering our physical and mental health. It's important to feel different emotions, and know how to respond when they occur.  It's important to eat a well balanced diet to maintain physical health.  It's important to have balance, and in balance there is always more than One.